Backseat Driver
by Paradisical815
Summary: The Winchesters were happy on their own; they never wanted an extra party. And, yet, here they were, zooming down some winding desert road with a teenage girl in the back. John doesn't approve, but John's not there, and hunting just got a little more fun.
1. Prologue: Something Wicked

_**Backseat Driver **_**by Katty Noir**

**A/N: First and foremost, THIS IS A SELF-INSERT FIC. IT FEATURES A FEMALE CHARACTER WHOSE NAME, LOOKS, PERSONALITY, FAMILY, ETC IS THE SAME AS MINE. I'm stating this NOW so that I don't get slack for it later. THIS HAS BEEN MADE CLEAR. SELF INSERT. NOT A SERIOUS FICTION. This story is purely for fun; I am not a professional writer and nor do I have any plans to become one.**

**Summary: Destinies never change; but the path leading up to that destination might. Sam and Dean cross paths with a teenager who has the "gift" of being extra sensitive to paranormal activity; namely, demons. They let her tag along for the summer, and, somewhere in between cases, in between dirty motels and phone calls to a father that never answers, the brothers realize she has her own destiny to work out, too. Starts in the middle of Season One and continues up to the finale.  
**

**Rating: T for violence, language, mature themes, and some sexual content.  
**

**Disclaimer: I do not own SUPERNATURAL or any quotes/song lyrics featured at the beginning of each chapter. I own Katty, Holly, Brooklynne, any characters and plot that are not connected to the television show. THIS IS THE DISCLAIMER FOR ALL FOLLOWING CHAPTERS.  
**

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_Felt it in my fists, in my feet, in the hollows of my eyelids_

_Shaking through my skull, through my spine_

_And down through my ribs_

**Prologue: Something Wicked**_  
_

Once upon a time, long after people still believed in fairy tales and monsters but before they considered such things a part of day-to-day life, there was a television show called _Supernatural._

It was a show about two brothers (and occasionally a father) but it was also about ghosts and vampire and monsters and all sorts of illogical things that had no place in our logical little world. It was also a story of love and redemption and just what it means to be a family.

Just as any show with two rugged, more than slightly damaged male leads, it gained quite a female following. The majority of these women thought it was a good story, something nice to finish the week with, laugh at, drool over, and maybe get a little scared. The majority of them didn't ever think that it could be real; there was no place for monsters and men that pretty in a world like this.

One was different.

One girl watched the adventures of this adorably dysfunctional family with a different kind of gaze- she watched it with the eyes of someone who knew, just knew, it had to be more than just a story.

It _had_ to be more than just a story.

000

_Murfreesboro, Tennessee_

_Late May  
_

There is something extraordinarily, supernaturally creepy about an empty school at nighttime.

As luck (or maybe fate) would have it, Holly Wakefield, Katty Sherman and Brooklynne Bell were not generally girls who scared easily, which provided some explanation as to why they were wandering aimlessly around the empty school, late at night, three long weeks before summer break.

"Let's go in the auditorium," suggested Holly, the girliest and most down to Earth of the trio, as they made their way to the west end of the school. This seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea to the other two, although Katty, the tom-boy of the group, was feeling a kind of black pressure in her stomach that was dreadfully familiar. She said nothing and chalked it up to paranoia. There was no reason to be frightened- she'd never felt anything at the school before. It wouldn't start out of nowhere like this.

It couldn't.

She may not have scared easy, but she wasn't stupid, either.

After passing through the little side hallway, they threw open the double doors leading into the side of the auditorium to see absolutely nothing. It was completely pitch black.

"Cool!" said Holly, taking a few steps into the darkened room. Brooklynne followed her, but Katty hung back at the doors, peering into the auditorium with eyes more accustomed to the dark and what could be hiding in it than other humans'.

The familiar pressure in her stomach was building, her skin tingling and her heart pounding. She felt like she couldn't get enough air, no matter how deeply she breathed. The room began to spin; she'd never felt anything this intense before. She put a hand on the doorway to steady herself as Holly disappeared into the black. All she could think was _get out_.

"Guys," she said, her voice reverberating around the empty room. The other two turned back to look at her, half bathed in shadow. "Guys, this isn't a good idea."

"Katty," said Brooklynne impatiently. Katty took a deep breath and half a step into the room and she knew immediately that if they didn't get out of there fast they wouldn't be going anywhere ever again.

"We need to leave," she said sharply, her eyes widening warningly, trying to keep her voice from shaking. "Right now. I'm not messing around you guys, we need to go right now-"

It may have been something in her voice that made them listen, or maybe it was the hair rising on the back of their own necks, but whatever it was, they walked past Katty without another word of protest, leaving her to close the doors behind them, and then ran all the way to the East side of the school, not speaking until they were in Katty's car, driving with their windows down, the cool night wind whipping their hair around their faces.

"Okay, that was weird," said Holly. Katty said nothing, gripping the steering wheel tightly, her jaw clenched and her brow furrowed.

"Katty?" asked Brooklynne, leaning forward and looking at the girl who was driving. "What was that?"

Katty couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't sound melodramatic. But her friends were still looking at her, so she said, simply, just one word because it was all she could manage, still staring intensely at the dark road ahead of her-

"Demons."

000

Hannah Day just wanted to leave. She was a senior; she had only two days of school left. She was graduating a week from Sunday and the last thing she wanted was to be back in the place, late at night on Friday. But she'd left her wallet in the auditorium, and she didn't really have much choice.

She stumbled into the dark room, arms outstretched in front of her, trying vainly to see. She tripped down the steps and swore, loudly, feeling for the stage.

Instead, she touched something solid and- and not exactly warm.

Her breath caught and her body went cold. She looked up and saw eyes, staring down at her, inhuman eyes.

She screamed.

000

The other two didn't believe her, not really. They knew they'd felt something, but they were, after all, logical and down to earth and they figured it must have been their more eccentric friend's paranoia rubbing off on them.

It _couldn't_ have been demons, they thought. Demons had no place in the chaotic but logical world of high-school and homework. It was just the stress, getting to them and making them imagine impossible things.

000

It was on the news Sunday.

A church group had found a girl in the auditorium, dead.

Horribly dead.

Murdered by something not human dead.

Of course, the papers didn't say that; no one working for them was smart enough to realize that the culprit was something much more terrifying than a serial killer. But Katty knew, instinctively, that a human did not nail that girl's feet and hands in the position of a five-point star to the stage and draw in her blood, on the wall, symbols that no one had ever seen before.

And, coincidentally, two young men in East Tennessee knew the same thing.

000

Sam Winchester stared for a few minutes at the headline of _the Tennessean_, not entirely sure he was reading it right.

**TEENAGER MURDERED IN HIGH SCHOOL AUDITORIUM.**

Phrases from the article jumped out at him, and as soon as he was done reading, he jumped to his feet and strode over to his brother's bed.

"Dean," he said, shaking the older man by the shoulder. "Dean, wake up."

Dean rolled over, throwing a tan and muscled arm over his face, eyes still half closed. "Christ, _what_-"

Raising his eyebrows, Sam shoved the paper in his face. Dean looked at it silently before his eyes flashed up to Sam, who just raised his eyebrows more.

"Christ," said Dean again, staring at the paper.

"Something tells me Christ doesn't have anything to do with this," said Sam.

000

School was cancelled Monday, for obvious reasons, but the students were back on Tuesday, all of them staring at the yellow tape across the doors to the auditorium as they walked past it to their classes.

Katty, Holly and Brooklynne, normally loud, vivacious, sarcastic, and hilarious, were unusually pale and quiet, and no one knew why.

It could have been them. There had almost been three deaths instead of one, and they knew it. On Sunday evening, police had shown up at their respective houses, saying that they had been seen on footage in the school cameras. They weren't being accused of anything; the cameras showed them driving away at exactly the same time the estimated time of death was, for the girl.

When the police informed her of that, Katty had gone white as a sheet.

Five minutes and it would have been them.

Holly tried to reason through it, talk it about with the other two, tried as hard as she could make some sense out of the nightmare.

But there was no sense to be made.

Brooklynne cried, because she didn't know what else to do.

And Katty sat motionless, jaw clenched, eyes red and haunted.

It was no human that had killed that girl.

**TBC...

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"Blinding," by Florence and the Machine.

A/N: HELLO LOVELY PEOPLE. I hope you enjoyed the start! Leave a review and tell me what you thought. Hope everyone's enjoying their summers, I am! I getting a ball python next Monday. FREAKING SCORE.

Love.

K


	2. Vendetta

_**Backseat Driver **_**by Katty Noir

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_They're gonna find you, just believe_  
_ You're not a person; you're a disease_

_ All these lives that you've been taking_  
_ Deep inside, my heart is breaking_  
_ Broken homes from separation_  
_ Don't you know it's violation?_  
_ It's so wrong, but you'll see_  
_ Never gonna let you take my world from me_  
_ The world outside these walls may know you're breathing_  
_ But you ain't comin' in_  
_ You ain't comin' in_

**Chapter One: Vendetta**

"Sammy, it's been _years_ since either of us looked like we were in high school. And damn, these outfits are completely ridiculous," griped Dean as the two brothers stood outside the glass doors, waiting for a student to walk past and let them in. Sam gave his brother a look.

"Shut up, Dean. They're _high_ _school_ers. They're not gonna notice anything weird about us."

"They're smarter than you give them credit for," hissed Dean, looking nervously between his taller little brother and the doors.

A pretty girl with impossibly straight hair and obviously waxed eyebrows opened the doors for them, giving them both up-downs and a small smile.

Sam gave Dean a meaningful glance and Dean rolled his eyes when his brother's back was turned.

"So we go into this auditorium, and then what? Start asking about the girl who died?"

"Well, apparently-" said Sam, ducking under the crime scene tape and picking the lock on the auditorium doors, "-three other girls were at the school at the same time the girl was killed. They were in the auditorium _literally_ five minutes before the girl was killed."

Dean raised his eyebrows and exhaled as they walked into the auditorium. "Lucky kids."

"Yeah, you're not kidding."

Sam began searching for the lights, and as soon as they came on, Dean pulled out the EMF detector and switched it on, scanning down the rows of blue, cushioned seats. There was a little static here and there, but that was normal in places of high-emotion… like a high school.

"You found anything?" called Dean, his voice echoing around the auditorium. Sam was back behind the stage.

"Nope."

Dean reached the stage and hopped on top of it- and the EMF detector went crazy, beeping and flashing rapidly. Dean stared at it, brow furrowing, and Sam stuck his floppy head around a deep blue curtain. The brothers' eyes met.

"This is one strong spirit," said Dean, hefting the detector and raising his eyebrows. Sam stepped all the way around the curtain, holding a hand full of what looked like ashes.

"I don't think it _was_ a spirit."

"A demon?"

"A major one. This thing wasn't summoned. It came here, out of hell-" he gestured to a burn on the stage that would look normal to other eyes, but the Winchesters knew better, "-'cause it wanted too. But…" Sam's brow furrowed. "Why _would_ it want to?"

Dean was beginning to feel vaguely uncomfortable. Not scared, but… uneasy. "Can we talk about that back at the motel? This place gives me the creeps."

Sam nodded, a little too quickly. "Yeah. Let's go."

000

Back in the motel, there were papers and pictures spread all across the desk and Sam's laptop was humming happily.

"Nothing bads' ever happened at the school, and the only deaths in the area before were a couple of car crashes."

"Didn't a guy kill his wife a few years ago?"

"Yeah, but that wouldn't be enough to attract a demon like this. Dean, the dude is way hardcore."

"What about an object? Demons can be tied to objects like spirits can, right?"

"Maybe, but not normally ones this strong. I'm telling yeah, Dean, demons that don't have to be summoned, the ones that can just pop out of hell… they're some bad-ass guys."

"So… what? It's attached to a person?"

Sam looked at Dean, his brows furrowing slightly in the middle. Dean scoffed.

"How the hell do we find out who?"

Sam set down a picture of three girls in front of Dean. Dean looked at it, then back up at his brother.

"They're cute, Sammy. Who the hell are they? New girlfriends?"

Sam gave him a look. "They're the girls who were in the auditorium five minutes before the other girl was killed. And apparently this one," he pointed at a girl with golden blonde hair, "and the other girl look alike in the dark. Same height, same body type, similar hair."

"So we start with them?"

"We start with them."

000

The _Them_, that afternoon, met up at Holly's house, just to be with each other, because since last Friday, they needed each other in a way they hadn't ever needed anyone before. There was something about being with other people who understand, other people who'd been there with them, that made it okay.

It was a Thursday, there were two weeks till summer, the homework load was light, and they were worried about things no one else would understand.

Katty was sprawled along one of the maroon leather couches while Holly and Brooklynne sat cross-legged on the floor, all of them drawing and talking and trying to reason through what had happened to them.

It wasn't easy. And Katty wasn't helping.

The other two would at least try to rationalize… the police, after all, said it was probably someone who was seriously disturbed, (Katty had had to stop herself from saying, "Well, _obviously_," at that point) but _human_, nevertheless. And hearing someone say that is was just a human, after feeling that completely not-human fear, was reassuring.

Katty, however, disagreed. Vehemently.

And it wasn't making it any easier for the other two.

"Why don't you think it was a human, Katty?" asked Brooklynne, humoring her slightly insane friend. Holly, who didn't believe in 'such nonsense', was vainly trying to convince herself that Katty was just paranoid and that what she herself had felt that night was nothing more than a reflection her paranoia.

"Sixth sense, premonition, something cheesy like that." She really was very calm about it, though. She sounded like she could have been talking about the weather. Which, in a way, made it all more unnerving; people did not talk about demons and the murders they may or may not have committed in a calm and rational way. They ran around flailing and screaming and getting their nourishment out of a tube.

"And you can always feel… them?"

"Yeah."

"How do you know that? How do you know it's _them_?"

Katty grinned a little, a grin that didn't reach her eyes, and tapped the side of her head.

"Cause I'm smart."

Holly snorted, giving her friend shifty eyes. "Keep telling yourself that."

Brooklynne collapsed back on the floor without a word, staring at the ceiling, her arms spread wide. Holly smacked her lips and Katty blinked.

"Well, then."

Brooklynne made an awkward gargling noise.

"It'll be okay, you guys," said Katty after a few moments of quiet, her voice low and calm. "I've been living with these things my whole life, and I turned out okay."

Brooklynne craned her neck up to give her friend a pointed look, and Holly coughed. Katty threw a pillow at Brooklynne.

"Okay, I'm_ mostly_ okay."

"Well, apart from the drooling, and the rabies, and the twitching-"

"-we're not talking about that-"

"-not to mention," cut in Holly, "-the plain ugliness."

Katty made a face.

"Oh," said Holly. "Oh my."

"SEE?" shrieked Brooklynne, pointing. "It's not HUMAN!"

"Leave me alone."

000

The weekend came and went before Sam and Dean had a chance to get back into the school. This time, though, they had to do more than sneak into an empty, roped off auditorium; they had to find three well-known girls, and they could not be caught.

"So what's the plan, Sammy-boy?" asked Dean as they walked into the school the same way they had the last time. They were getting flirtatious looks from a number of high-school girls, which seemed to make Sam feel slightly awkward; Dean, however, always reveled in female attention.

"Why is it_ I'm_ always the one who does the planning?" asked Sam, giving his brother an exasperated look. Dean smirked widely and winked at a pretty girl with long blonde hair.

"Cause I'm better at the whole," he made a gesture with his hands before looking up at his taller little brother, "hitting on girls, getting inta places sort of thing."

Sam gave him a look that said, very plainly, 'could you be any more arrogant?'

The answer, of course, was yes. Yes, he could.

A bell rang, and the brothers both looked around in alarm. It had been a while since they'd been in high school.

They were immediately engulfed in a swarm of chattering teenagers. They both stopped for a few seconds, shocked and slightly overwhelmed.

It had been a very long time since high school.

After a second or two, they began moving again, walking past the glass walls of the cafeteria-

Sam put out a hand. "Dean," he said, his voice odd and urgent. "Stop."

Dean stopped and looked quizzically up at Sam, who was staring somewhere down the hall. Dean followed his line of sight, then looked back at his brother, wondering if he'd lost his mind. His brother was staring at a girl, a short girl with a brown bag, messy blonde hair, and eyes so blue they stood out from thirty feet away.

Dean realized that the girl was standing completely still and staring back at them in much the same way they were staring at her. Dean also realized that she looked vaguely familiar.

He waved his fingers in front of Sam's face as the bell rang again. Sam blinked back into awareness with a start.

"That's her," he said, looking down at Dean, green eyes wide. "The girl- one of the girls."

She was moving closer, not blinking, grasping one of the straps of her bag, her stunning eyes wide and her mouth open slightly in surprise.

"You have got to be kidding me," she said, her voice echoing around the cavernous hall. Dean blinked.

"Excuse me?"

"This might sound completely crazy, but are you- are you Sam?" She looked to the taller of the two and then over to Dean. There was an expression on her face that said very clearly she did not believe what she was seeing. "And Dean? Dean Winchester?"

The boys exchanged a startled look. They hadn't expected that.

"Yeah," said Sam slowly, looking back to the girl with a perplexed expression. "We are."

"And who are you?" asked Dean, rudely, but the girl didn't seem to mind. Or notice. She just looked at him for a minute, eyes almost perfectly round and mouth slightly open, her face strangely pale; she looked like she'd seen a ghost. Sam and Dean exchanged a perplexed look.

"I think we might have some catching up to do," she said a second later, and a grin spread over her round face, a grin that looked uncontrollable, slightly hysterical, and more than a little shark-like.

"Sure as hell sounds like it," said Dean, still staring at her as though he was trying to see what she was thinking.

He was. Trying, that is. And failing.

"When and where?" asked Sam.

000

It was 4:15 pm and it was gray and rainy.

The brothers were waiting at the IHOP that the girl had told them about, and now they were waiting for her to show up.

The door swung open with a clinging of bells and they looked up. She walked past the manager, throwing the man a careless and charming smile, and sat down gracelessly in front of Sam.

"Sorry it took me so long," she said, which was not what they were expecting her to say, "I had to drop off my friend and my brother."

"Yeah, I know how that feels," said Dean, giving Sam a glance. Sam rolled his eyes. "Anyway," he continued, looking the girl dead in the eyes (they were a little bit spectacular, he couldn't help but notice; he was, after all, Dean Winchester, and charming is what he _did_), "I think we have some story exchanging to do."

"Sure," she said, and signaled a waiter before running her hands through her damp hair- it seemed to be the only attention she ever gave it. It fell around her face and down her collarbones in shaggy golden waves, messy and unruly. "I'll have an iced tea."

"Same here," said Sam, with a nod and a smile that was more a tightening of his mouth than an actual smile.

"Water," said Dean shortly, without looking away from the girl. She looked a little taken aback but slightly amused all the same by the ferocity of his gaze. There was something gleeful in her round face.

"Do you wanna start?" she asked, looking between the two of them. "Or should I?"

The brothers said nothing and she sighed, crossing her arms across her full chest. Dean saw a chain glinting around her neck and realized that she was wearing a cross that looked as though it was made from pure silver.

This chick kept getting more and more interesting.

"I'll start," she said, and drank half of her tea in one go, head tilted backwards, long neck extended. Dean smirked. "Alright. Ever since I was a kid, I've felt these… these _presences_…."

She told them everything. About the presences, about her life, the nightmares that left her paralyzed, literally, paralyzed, when she woke up; the sounds inside the walls; the screaming, rushing, whirring, drumming noises she heard in her head when she wasn't awake but wasn't asleep; the scratches when she woke up; the constant, crippling, breath-taking fear.

And just when they thought she was done, when it couldn't get any weirder, she took a breath and looked them in the eye, her face guarded and nervous in a way it hadn't been before.

"There's something else, too."

Sam looked at Dean and Dean leaned forward, looking her square in the eye.

"Tell us."

"It's not about me," she said hurriedly, raising dark brows, her front teeth (slightly larger than normal) showing from between full, open lips. Dean noticed, almost clinically, that she was attractive. "It's… it's about you. 'Bout how I knew you."

Sam looked at Dean again and Dean raised his eyebrows, eyes still glued on the oddball in front of him. "Well, then you _really_ need to tell us."

She told them.

They believed her- after she'd told them things about themselves that no one should have been able to know.

But they didn't like it.

Then they did something they'd never done before, although, after what she'd told them, it would just pointless to not to. But then, they'd never met anyone like this girl before. They told her their story- at least, an abridged version of it, the version for young adults. She took it like a pro, too, although maybe that wasn't so surprising, considering what she lived with. And what she already knew.

Sam filled her in, mostly, and Dean watched her, mostly, trying to figure her out as much as he could. They'd seen a lot, the brothers had. They'd come against psychics, even people who could move things with their minds, but never people who could just feel demons like this; demons, generally, had something in them that hid them from the world unless they wanted their presence to be known. They'd never even heard of it, of people like her, before this. They knew that John Winchester hadn't either; he'd always stuck by the fact that demons were perfect hunters when it came to stealth and stalking. They wondered what he would make of this girl.

"So," Sam said, to alleviate the awkward silence that fell between the trio once both stories were over.

"So…" said the girl, raising her eyebrows. She seemed more defensive than she was before, as though she'd showed them a little too much of herself.

Dean sure as hell knew how that felt.

Sam chuckled, a little awkwardly.

"We, uh…. We don't know your name," he said, smiling a little. The girl stared, then laughed again

"I'm Katty," she said, sticking a hand out and shaking, first with Dean, then Sam. "Katty Sherman."

000

It started slowly, this cabal that had previously been two.

Before they parted ways that day, the brothers told Katty where they were staying, and then the next day, on Tuesday afternoon, their doorbell rang unexpectedly and there she was, her purse slung across her chest, her hair messy and her eyes glinting.

Dean held the door open and blinked. She gave him a charming grin.

"Got some info for ya," she said, and pushed her way past him into the motel room. Dean cocked his head, looking around after her.

"Alright then," he said, and shut the door on the outside world.

"I went in the auditorium during school today," she said, sitting down on the edge of Sam's bed (although she probably didn't know it was Sam's) and pulled her camera out of her bag. "And I couldn't even concentrate because it felt so…" she made wide, circular gesture with her arms, "so strong."

The brothers exchanged an incredulous glance before returning to staring at her. "Anyway, I took some pictures, 'cause I can't see them, haven't yet at least, but I know cameras can pick up on ghosts, and I thought maybe they could pick up demons too, so I tried it out." She hefted the camera, a hard glint in her eyes. "And guess what I saw."

The brothers looked at each other and back to her. Katty raised her eyebrows and handed the camera to them. "That was the best one I got."

The picture was of the edge of the stage, and there was a black form standing on the edge, looking back at the camera and glinting at them from his face were two yellow eyes.

Dean looked up at Katty, who was staring at him as though this picture should mean something to them. "A yellow eyed demon?" he asked. She nodded, slowly, a look of confusion crossing her face before her eyes cleared completely and she suddenly looked like she was wearing a mask. Dean looked to Sam.

"You ever heard any lore on these guys?"

Sam looked at the camera and shook his head. "Nope. All the demons I've ever heard of have had red or black eyes."

The both looked to Katty, whose face was now completely blank. They both got the strong feeling that there was something she wasn't telling them.

000

There would be a point in the lives of these three people when they would know quite literally everything about each other. Katty already knew a great deal about the brothers, thanks to the television show that was now inexplicably a reality.

But there was a world of things the brothers didn't know about Katty. They thought her interesting, but not too interesting; not yet. She was pretty, but not too pretty, and funny, but _only_ funny; she was, apart from the demon thing, extraordinarily average. That, at least, was their first impression.

They didn't know that she was an artist; that she could draw someone and capture their soul, on paper, immortalizing them forever. They didn't know that she loved eighties music and that she fell asleep praying, most nights. They didn't know that her birthday was November 24, and that her best friend, Holly, had been born on that exact same day, the exact same year, exactly twelve hours after Katty had been born.

They didn't know that the silver cross they'd seen around her neck hadn't left it in years; they didn't know that she could sing, and sing well, and felt more at home on a stage than most people do in their own houses; they didn't know she loved to read, and was smarter than she looked; that she cried when she watched Disney movies but hardly never cried in real life.

The things the Winchesters didn't know about Katty could have filled several books, but there were a few things they didn't know about her, that, over the years, would have more of an impact than others.

They didn't know she had a huge, not-so-_fictional_-crush, not anymore, on their father.

They didn't know she knew her guardian angel's name.

They didn't know she knew that the demon know stalking her school was the same one that had killed their mother.

000

Dean returned to the motel room early in the afternoon several days later. Sammy was sitting at the desk, on his computer, surrounded by papers. His hair was messy from all the times he'd run his hands through it.

"Find anything?" asked Dean around a chocolate bar in his mouth.

"Yeah," said Sam, staring at the computer. "A lot. This demon dates back to Hebrew mythology and was sort of taken on by Christian legends." He exhaled. "I was right. This is one badass guy. He ties into apocalypse myths, and apparently has his own army of handpicked humans." He looked up at Dean.

"So you think someone at the school is in this little club?" asked Dean, still chomping on chocolate. Sam raised his eyebrows.

"Sure looks that way."

Dean collapsed onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling and trying to not think about anything. He had almost drifted off when he heard Sam's chair creaking.

"So," said Sam, his voice slightly formal and guarded, indicating a potentially problematic change of subject. "I've been thinking."

"We all gotta start somewhere," said Dean sleepily, eyes closed. Sam didn't reply to this.

"Thinking about Katty."

Dean opened his eyes and turned his head to look at his younger brother, and there was something shifty in Sam's face.

"What did you do, Sammy?"

"Nothing, Dean. I was just thinking-" he broke eye contact for a few seconds, looking somewhere in the corner, before his eyes flicked back to Dean's.

"I think she should come with us."

000

A week passed, and although they knew what they were hunting now, they were no closer to actually getting rid of Yellow Eyes. The brothers and the unexpected addition to their team had no idea who the demon was after.

Two weeks passed, and the school year was almost over; Katty was about to take her finals. No clue. They scanned the whole school for any object with an EMF, looked up the history of every single person working at or attending the school for any history that a demon like this would be interested in, and there was noting. Absolutely nothing, which, needless to say, wasn't exactly normal.

But it wasn't just the demon that unnerved them. After spending nearly three weeks in the presence of the girl, the brothers were getting to know her very well, and while they'd often made "friends" with women who provided assistance on cases, it had never been like this before. Katty slipped into the casual chaos of the boys' lives with an unprecedented ease, and none of it seemed to bother her, which bothered Dean, more than a little.

And then there was Sam, who was not so subtly hinting at asking her to go with them. Dean wasn't really sure how to feel about that. He liked the kid, sure, it was hard not to like her, and hell, it'd be nice to have someone other than Sam to talk to (and look at)- but he didn't want the orderly chaos of their world, of the two of them and the road and the Impala, to be shaken by the presence of some girl.

And, most importantly, he didn't want to know what his father would say if they took a seventeen-year-old kid hunting with them.

000

Dean stood outside the high-school at noon, looking at the entrance and waiting for Sam with his cell phone out, contemplating calling his father, like he had been for the past two weeks, when he saw he had a missed call, from Katty, and it surprised him to see that it had been at six in the morning. He raised an eyebrow; he knew enough about her to know she never woke up any earlier than she had too.

He vaguely remembered chucking his phone across the room at around that time.

He pressed a series of numbers and held the phone up to his ear.

His dad didn't answer, but he hadn't really expected him to.

"Hey, dad. This is, uh… this is Dean. I've been meaning to call you for a couple of weeks now, but I… I didn't. Anyway, we found something pretty big. A demon with yellow eyes that we think is here to pick up someone for an army. We don't know who it's after, yet, but we got this girl, and she can actually feel the sonsabitches, an' she's helping us. I think you'd like 'er."

Dean chuckled and then exhaled and ran a hand over his face. "C'mon, dad, call back. Sam an' I need- I need your help."

"Hey."

Dean hung up the phone quickly and turned to face his brother. "You ready?"

Sam nodded, then looked at the high-school with an expression on his face that said, very clearly, "do not want".

They walked into the school and presented their badges at the front office before looking to the glass walls of the cafeteria. Sam pointed and Dean looked in the direction in which he was pointing. "There she is."

They saw a telltale head of golden hair, her back to the glass. They made their way and knocked on the glass, and she turned around before a grin broke out on her face. The smile was tired and drained and seemed almost relieved, not the charming, glinting and faintly shark-like grin they'd become accustomed to. Her face was pale, drawn, her eyes were red, and her hair was even messier than usual.

She waved at them and the brothers saw that there was a bandage on her collarbone.

"What the _hell_," muttered Dean, eyes narrowing suddenly, and they burst open the doors and immediately strode to Katty. She stood up and walked to the end of the table to meet them, her movements tired and pain-ridden.

"What-" began Sam. Katty looked at him. Dean was staring at her with horror on his face.

She looked at them for a minute and then averted her eyes.

"I had a little too much fun last night," she said with a half shrug and a weak smile, and Sam stared at her incredulously.

"What happened to your neck, Katty?" asked Dean, his voice flat and his eyes hard.

She looked up at him from under wisps of golden hair that fell into her face. "They came to my house," she said, her voice clenched, her eyes still locked onto Dean's. "Last night. I heard them… whispers." She took a deep breath. "And I saw it. Well, some of it. You guys, it had yellow eyes."

**Murfreesboro, Tennessee**

**1999**

_The Sherman family- consisting of two small children and one newborn baby- were just arriving at the newly-constructed house that would soon be theirs. A young Katty Sherman- then known as Katie- looked around the nice neighborhood in awe, staring in an infant's amazement at the way the golden light of the afternoon bathed the scene._

_She was walking down the driveway when she heard a voice, a man's voice, deep and gravelly, call her name._

"_Katie."_

_She turned around, but no one was there, no one expect her parents, her brother and her new sister, and they were looking up at the house. The voice hadn't been any of theirs', anyway._

_In her innocence, she thought it was her dog who had called her name._

_It would not be until years later, when they were in a new house, that she would realize what exactly it was that had called her name._

000_  
_

Dean's fists clenched as Sam sucked in his breath angrily. "Did it do that to you?"

"I noticed it when I woke up."

"Why the hell didn't you call us when you heard them?" growled Dean, stepping forward to her. "Kat, you could have been killed-"

"Dean," said Sam warningly, glancing around the crowded cafeteria; they were already garnering odd looks from the various teenagers. Katty's eyes hardened.

"When you got scared, as a kid," she said, her eyes flickering between the brothers, "did you ever tell your dad? Or ask him for help?"

The brothers both exhaled, knowing that the answer was a loud, laughable and resounding _no_.

"Same thing, guys," she said. "I've been dealing with this since I was a kid. I'm not about to start asking for help."

"Have they ever hurt you before?" asked Dean angrily. Sam sighed and raised his eyes to the heavens.

"Nothing like this-" began the girl, but Dean cut her off.

"Exactly. Kid, listen, I know you think you can deal with these things yourself, but you _can't_. Not yet."

She shrugged. "You're probably right. But I'm not used to asking for help about this. Geez Louise, I'm not even used to _talking_ about it with anyone who isn't my family."

"Well, that was before us," said Dean, with a tone of finality in his voice.

"You can always ask us for help," added Sam, his voice less harsh than his brother's, looking deep into Katty's eyes. "Anytime you need anything…. We've been where you are, Kat." Katty stared between the two of them, her eyes beginning to glisten.

"Oh, god," said Dean, a look of horror on his face. "You aren't gonna cry, are you?"

"No," she said defensively, running the back of her hand forcefully across her eyes. "I'd never be this sappy if I'd gotten more sleep last night."

Dean rolled his eyes and put a hand on her back, maneuvering her to the doors of the cafeteria.

"Katty," called one of her friends- a boy with defined cheekbones and brown eyes. "You okay?"

Dean and Sam turned slowly to look at the table of her friends, their gazes full of ice. They knew what it was like to have friends you couldn't tell the most important things about yourself to, and they didn't want that for the girl standing on Dean's right. They glowered at the boy, who glowered right back.

She looked back at him and put a hand on Dean's arm to stop the glaring war. "I'm fine."

"No," said Sam, giving everyone at the table one last, impressively terrifying look. Katty rolled her eyes. "You're not."

"High schoolers," muttered Dean. "C'mon, kid," he said louder with a furtive and manly glance at the still staring occupants of the table, grabbing her elbow and looking to Sam with deeply furrowed brows. "Guess we know what the demon's after."

They rode the two minutes from the school to Katty's gray house in silence. It was only when they pulled onto the street that Dean turned around and asked Katty, "Is anyone at your house?"

"Ah, shit," she said, letting her head fall against the seat. "My dad."

"Does he know?" asked Sam, twisting around to fix her with a concerned gaze. "About the demons?"

"Actually, yeah," she said as they pulled into her winding driveway. "And I've kinda been telling them about everything going on."

"Why the hell would you do that?" asked Dean as they climbed out of the car.

"They're my parents, Dean. I tell them everything, especially stuff like this."

"Well, lucky you," muttered Dean, grabbing two guns out of the trunk and tossing one to Sam.

"Do I get one?" asked Katty, appearing at him side and staring at all the weaponry with unmistakable lust in her eyes. Dean chuckled and shut the door.

"Not yet, kiddo. Not yet."

"Dad?" called Katty as she opened the front door and led the brothers into the house. "Dad, you here?"

"Katie?" said a male voice. "Why are you home?"

He came out of a hallway in front of the stairs and then stared at the brothers and their guns.

"What the hell is going on?" he asked, his voice angry.

"Dad, it's cool," said Katty, her voice placating. "This is Sam and Dean Winchester… the guys I was telling you about."

Dean gave a very forced smile while Sam nodded at the older man. He eyed them with all the shrewdness of a father. Katty repressed the urge to roll her eyes and instead raised a brow.

"What are they doing here?"

"Your daughter was attacked last night," said Sam, his voice low. "We're here to make sure she's safe."

"So you're gonna get rid of it."

"We're gonna kill it," said Dean, raising his eyebrows. "If we can."

The man stared in between the two of them for a moment before nodding.

"Alright," said Sam, moving forward. "Sir, it'll be best for you to take your daughter somewhere safe for a few hours-"

"No," said Katty, turning to stare at Sam. Her father's eyes flashed from his daughter to Sam. "I'm staying."

"Katty," began Sam, raising his eyebrows and cocking his head to the side slightly, "that's not a good idea."

"This _thing_," she said, her voice low and angry and her eyes gleaming, "has been stalking me since I was a kid. You're not the only-" she stopped and took a breath before continuing in a slightly calmer but no less tense voice. "Everything I've done, everywhere I _go_, this thing has been shadowing me. If you think I'm going anywhere, you've clearly lost some brain cells hunting."

Dean laughed and Sam looked at him incredulously. Dean shrugged. "She's got a point, Sammy."

"It's _dangerous_, Dean."

"In case you haven't noticed, Sammy, everything in her life has been _defined_ by dangerous," said Dean shortly, gesturing at the girl. Sam gave him a look.

Her father put a hand on her shoulder, halting the fruitless argument. "I'll go," he said, meeting his daughter's eyes. "I'll be back in an hour." He hugged her. "Be safe, Katie."

"I love you, dad," she said, and the boys averted their gazes, thinking about their own absentee father.

The door slammed and moments later Theodore Sherman was driving away, the purple Chrysler disappearing down the street. Katty turned to look back at the brothers, her eyes hard and burning.

"Tell me what to do," she said, "and I'll do it."

They nodded, Sam resigned, and then they walked up the stairs, guns at the ready.

"Dean," said Sam, quietly. "You know we won't be able to kill it."

"No," said Dean, his voice little more than a growl. "But we can make sure it never comes back to this house."

They were in the yellow hallway, Katty behind them. "Wait a sec," she said, and disappeared into a room that had to have been hers. Dean peered in. It was messy, painted light green, with a tiger striped bed. He raised his eyebrows. She came back, holding a small silver knife. Dean stared at her.

"Where did you get that?" he asked. She shrugged.

"I've had it for a while," she said. And then, without warning, she was thrown against the wall by an invisible force, her feet inches off the ground, her mouth open, gasping for air, her eyes wide, and her hands grappling wildly at something around her throat.

"Katty!" shouted the brothers, their guns pointed at the place where the thing had to be.

Let her go," growled Dean. "Let her go, or I swear-"

"Or what?" said an amused and evil voice. Katty was going paler, odd noises emerging from her throat as she struggled for breath. "You'll kill me?" He materialized, and he was bald, with a thin face, a crooked smile and yellow eyes. "Guess again, Dean." His eyes flashed to the taller brother. "Hey there, Sam. Miss me?"

"Go to hell," spat Sam, his face contorting. The demon grinned, tilting his head.

"Not yet, Sammy. Well, now that I've got both of ya here-"

Then, in a move that completely floored all of them (literally, in the demon's case) Katty pulled her legs back and kicked as hard as she could, which, in her oxygen deprived state, wasn't very hard. But it was hard enough and unexpected enough to send the demon across the hall and into the wall. Katty collapsed in a heap, still clutching the knife, gasping. Dean and Sam moved to her, but the demon was faster, and had the knife wrenched from her gasp, and her back was pressed against the wall, the knife against her neck.

"Not a chance, Sammy," it said. "Long time no see, by the way. You've sure gotten big."

"_What_?"

"Dick," gasped Katty, her voice raspy and hoarse. Sam's face contorted.

"C'mon, doll," said the demon, looking back to her and grinning. "You know me better than that."

"Get off me," she hissed. He cocked his head.

"Not scared of me anymore?"

"I stopped being scared of you a long time ago," she said hoarsely. "Now I'm just pissed."

"Well, that's good," said the demon, grinning wider. "Anger is always good."

Dean cocked the gun and held it up to the demon's head. "Let the girl go."

"Sorry, Dean," it said. "No can do. She belongs to me, you see."

"Fuck that," said Katty, and grabbed the knife around the blade, wrenching it out of the demon's grasp. She yanked something around her neck off and wrapped it around the knife blade and plunged it into the demon's heart. He stopped, a flicker of surprise in his yellow eyes as he looked down at the blade emerging from his chest, the hilt still held in Katty's dripping hand. Sam and Dean exchanged a look.

The demon laughed. "A silver cross. Pretty legit, kiddo."

"Get out of my house," she hissed. "And don't you ever come back."

The demon's eyes narrowed. "You sure you wanna do that?"

Dean pressed the gun into the back of the demon's head.

"Very," said Katty, and the demon shrugged.

"As you wish."

There was a sound like a gunshot and then Katty's knife fell to the ground.

The demon was gone.

**Murfreesboro, Tennessee**

**2001**

_A nine-year-old Katie sat in her bed in a house she and her family had only lived in for two years, staring with wide, frightened eyes at the open door, leading to a dark hallway. The house was silent, the rest of her large family sound asleep._

_Katie didn't know why she wasn't able to sleep. All she knew was that she was terrified, terrified of something she wasn't old enough to name. It was a crippling kind of fear, one that made it hard to breathe, turned every sound into a footstep, squished your insides all together so that you felt like you were filled with darkness. It was a kind of fear that adults had no hope of coping with; let alone a nine-year old._

_Wide blue eyes filled slowly with tears, still staring at that empty hallway. There was nothing there._

_And that was part of what scared her so much._

_000  
_

Sam moved forward to catch Katty as she slumped forward, and she looked up at him as Dean lowered his gun.

"God," she said, her voice relieved and her face still hard. Dean could see the adrenaline pumping behind her eyes and he grinned; he knew that feeling. "That felt so good."

She walked downstairs unsupported, if a little shaky, and slumped down in one of the high seats at the bar. Dean and Sam stood in front of her and she closed her eyes.

"Did that really just happen?" she asked, eyes still closed. The hand she'd grasped the knife with was on the bar, palm open, blood pooling.

"You did great, kid," said Dean, his voice a little tight. He was intensely surprised to find realize how proud he was; he never felt anything like pride for anyone who wasn't himself or his brother.

She opened her eyes and looked at him, her full lips serious and her eyes piercing. "You have no idea how much that means to me."

Sam gave her a smile. "Let's fix up that hand of yours."

000

When Katty's family got home, the trio was sitting on the couch, all of them sound asleep, with Sam in the middle and Dean's head lolling on his shoulder, Sam's arm around Katty, whose head was tilted back, her mouth open. Karen Sherman moved forward, but Ted stopped her and Katty's siblings stared.

"I guess they did it," said Ted, staring at his daughter with unmistakable pride in his eyes and voice. Karen looked to her husband, who put an arm around her shoulders.

"They got rid of it."

000

After expelling the demon from Katty's home, the three were closer than they had been before. Pre-demon, they had felt like they needed to protect Katty- protect her from the demons, from the world. Now, they realized, in a subconscious sort of way, that she was capable. Not safe, by any means, but that she could at least take care of herself.

And so they began to treat her less like the little sister they never had and more like the partner they needed.

000

"She should come with us," Sam said two nights later, his voice firmer than it had been the last time he brought it up. Dean sighed, sitting back on the bed and looking his younger brother dead in the eyes for a few seconds. Sam met his gaze levelly.

"Sam, we've talked about this."

"No, Dean, we haven't. _I_ talked about this and you just grunted at me-"

"That's because it's not a very good idea-"

"Why not?"

Dean stared at him. "Sammy. Have we ever, I mean- _ever_- brought someone with us before? _Especially_ someone we barely know?"

Sam said nothing but looked away.

"Right. It's always been us and dad-"

"Exactly," said Sam, pointing at his brother, a triumphant gleam in his eyes. "There's always been three of us, Dean, and you and me make a good team, but we fight all the time and half the time we make things more complicated than they were to begin with-"

"-and you think having a _girl_ in the backseat is gonna help that?"

"Yeah, _Dean_, I do."

"Sammy, the only thing that'll happen when she comes with us is that morning wood is gonna get even more awkward." He shrugged. "No. That's it."

"We could _use_ her, Dean."

"Sam, the demon wants her. She's got a friggin' target the size of Texas on the back of her head. Do you really want that comin' around with us-"

"-we can protect her, Dean. Isn't that what we do?" Sam's eyes burned into Dean's. "Protect people?"

"She can take care of herself," said Dean, raising his eyebrows. Sam was shaking his head.

"She got lucky."

"Twice?"

"Dean, when that thing wants her, really wants her, she doesn't stand a chance."

"Sam-"

"-and," said Sam, his voice a little more fervent now, rising to his feet, "she knows what's gonna happen to us, Dean. She can help us, she can help us find dad-"

The last part was tempting. Dean looked away from Sam, thinking.

"Alright," he said."Fine. We'll ask-" he pointed a warning finger, "but Sammy, she might not even say yes."

Sam looked very happy and was trying to hide it. Failing miserably, but trying. "Thanks, Dean."

Dean cocked his head. "You won't be thanking me when she starts nagging us to clean the Impala out, believe me."

000

They decided, three days before the end of Katty's school year, that they needed to go to the auditorium in Katty's school and make sure the thing was gone for good. It may have left Katty's home, but it was still in her school- the number of skinned animals found in the building over the past couple of weeks cemented that fact.

Neither of the brothers had said anything to Katty yet about her coming with them. Both (though Dean would rather eat only salad for a year before admitting it) were a little nervous about the answer.

They reached the school quickly and were relieved to be faced by an empty parking lot- a bonus of Saturday mornings at the end of the year.

The trio went around to the back of the Impala and armed up.

Dean offered Katty the end of a shotgun filled with silver bullets and she took it, her hands only shaking a little.

Dean noted that her eyes were hard and glittering.

"Katty," he said as he closed the trunk. She looked up at him, golden bangs falling into her eyes.

"Listen," he began, a little awkwardly. "I know you feel like this… this is personal. But remember to be careful. Don't want 'cha getting' hurt. I think your dad would kill us."

"Careful like last time?" she asked, grinning. He shrugged, reflecting her smile on his own face.

"Maybe a little more careful than that."

She looked at him for a moment and then nodded. He clapped her on the shoulder, the way he would another man. "Sammy and I don't make many friends, not with this job. We don't wanna lose one of the few we got."

She stared at him, an unnamable but clearly intense emotion in her eyes. Dean felt more than a little bit uncomfortable.

"Yeah, yeah, enough pansy stuff," he said, his voice tense, putting a large gun over his shoulder. "Let's go get us a demon."

Sam mimicked his brother's movement and Katty shoved the gun down the front of her pants in a movement that suggested familiarity. When she looked back up, Dean was slightly taken aback by the burning in her eyes, and he knew that they whatever had begun five days ago in her home, it was not _near_ over between Katty and the demon. This thing had stolen her childhood, her innocence, and her ignorance. It didn't matter what Dean said. Katty was too much like his father, his brother, himself.

This had always been personal.

**Murfreesboro, Tennessee**

**2009**

**Late January**

_If someone had asked her what was wrong, the sixteen-year-old Katty would not have known what to say. All it took was one evening, and everything was back to the way it had always been._

_She hadn't even realized it. When they'd moved, all the fear had stopped, and as time went on she'd forgotten she ever was afraid. For two years, there was no fear, no pressure, no screaming inside her head._

_Then, one night, she went upstairs and found herself afraid to turn around and afraid to sit in the silence because there was something, something black and invisible and incomprehensible, sucking all of the joy out of the place and leaving only fear. The next night, she stayed home by herself for several hours, and spent the entire time weeping and praying, not going anywhere near the stairs- she could feel them, right behind her, but she knew she wouldn't be able to see them._

_Her dogs refused to go near the stairs. They sat at her feet, alternating between whining and growling and pacing._

_0  
_

_The next day at school she was shaky and pale and jumpy, and that afternoon, she had a complete breakdown in the car, driving home, sobbing harder than she'd ever sobbed in her life, angry and terrified._

_She let her head fall forward onto the steering wheel at a stoplight, tears streaming down her face, her mouth contorted into an open grimace and she shook with sobs._

"_It's not fair," she gasped out, again and again. "I'm not safe in my own home. Not even in my own house."_

_She'd learned to live with it once- she learned again. She stayed away from movies with demonic elements in them; it just hit too close to home. _

_Her worst fear was that, not matter where she went, these things would always be with her, this fear would always follow her._

_She couldn't tell her friends. Her family helped her, because they were her family and because they all knew that things like demons and the devil were much more real than people liked to believe. She kept it alone, buried inside her, not knowing anyone else who was like her, anyone who could help her- and she spent countless night wide awake, staring in paralyzing fear at the ceiling as she heard noises in the night._

000_  
_

They walked to the school and Dean held the door open for the other two, bowing sarcastically as Katty walked past. She gave him a smirk, and then, when they reached the auditorium, she held the door open for him and bowed deeply at the waist with a twirl of her arm. Sam rolled his eyes.

Dean kept an eye on her as they entered the auditorium. Her bravado didn't disappear, but seemed to narrow and focus.

He was starting to wonder what it would be like if she did come with them. It would mean another order at the diner, another bed at the motel, a girl in the backseat of the Impala…

Sam flicked the lights on as the other two leapt onto the stage, and they walked to the center, where the girl had died.

Dean sighed and shrugged as he pulled supplies out of his bag. "Let's get started."

The brothers began making the devil's trap as Katty watched and occasionally handed them tools and asked questions.

"What's that?"

"A sigil."

"What's a sigil?"

"A symbol that gets power through prayer."

"Should I pray?"

"Please don't."

Dean was getting annoyed. Sam was amused. She watched them crawl around on the stage and tilted her head.

"Why does the line go like that?"

Dean snapped. "It just does, okay?"

Sam snorted.

Dean straightened up a few minutes later, wiping his hands on the knees of his jeans. Sam straightened up too, running his hands through his hair instead of on his jeans.

There was a moment of silence.

"Now what?" asked Katty quietly. The pressure in her stomach was building.

They waited for five minutes, Katty standing in between the brothers, all of them with their hands shoved in their pockets, staring intently at the Devil's Trap.

Fifteen.

At twenty, Dean slammed a knife into the stage and then turned to Katty, his brow furrowed deeply. Sam looked around too, right at Katty, who just stared back at them.

"Do something," said Dean. "Draw it out. Move to the trap and draw it out."

"How?" she asked. He grabbed her hands, staring intensely into her eyes.

"Katty, truth is, we don't know jack squat about this demon. You do. You two are tied to each other."

The pressure was growing.

"Katty," said Sam, moving forward. "You don't have to do this, I will-"

"No," she said, more forcefully than they'd expected, and both brothers looked a little surprised before she regained her composure. She squeezed Dean's hands, her eyes on his, and nodded. "I got this."

She let go of him and moved slowly over to the trap. The brothers watched, their bodies tense, both of them thinking about how incredibly short she was. She glanced back at them and drew a breath as though she was steeling herself.

And then, her eyes locked with Dean's, she began to sing.

The room was immediately plunged into darkness.

The boys drew out their guns and aimed them at the area around Katty, their bodies tense, their eyes straining to pierce the darkness. The unexpectedly beautiful sound of her voice flowed around them as the temperature steadily dropped.

She was singing a hymn that was over two thousand years old.

The temperature kept dropping, and the lights were still out, leaving them all in pitch darkness.

"Where are you, you son of a bitch?" shouted Dean, the sound reverberating around the auditorium walls. He half saw, half sensed Sam lowering his gun. "What the hell are you doing, Sammy?"

"Dean, _look_!"

Dean looked. And jammed the gun against his jaw, his heart hammering.

There was a faint glow, coming from behind Katty and illuminating her, growing more and more distinct. And as the light grew and spread, the brothers were able to see the form in front of her- a solid black mass, reaching out, trying to surround her, stopped only by the light behind her.

It registered in Dean's mind that these things were alive, and that they were wrestling on either side of the small blonde girl.

The light was becoming clearer- they could see, now, that it was a man, or at least had the form of one.

"No way," said Sam, and Dean lowered his gun, unwilling to believe what he was seeing but unable to tear his eyes away. The man was growing more and more distinct and they saw a prominent brow-ridge and curly hair- he stood almost a head taller than Katty.

"Is that-?" Dean asked, his voice a gravelly growl, his brow furrowed so deeply he was beginning to resemble a Neanderthal.

"-yeah."

Katty was staring right into the demon's yellow eyes, a triumphant look on her face. The white entity grabbed the demon suddenly, and with a whirling shriek, it disappeared.

The lights came back on and the temperature rose.

The demon was gone (for good, the brothers instinctively knew) but the creature made of light remained. Katty turned to him as Sam and Dean watched.

"Thank you," she said, and the man smiled. He reached up, touching her face, a white light rippled over her body. She closed her eyes as his hand rested on her face. The man turned to the brothers, green eyes that were illuminated from the inside out peering out of the ancient but unlined face. The Winchesters simply stared.

The man looked to both of them, and they were suddenly aware of two more glowing lights- one next to Sam and one next to Dean.

"No way," said Dean quietly. The man they could see smiled and then three voices spoke, in otherworldly, celestial harmony.

"You are not alone."

The lights faded.

The three looked at each other and then Sam said what they were all thinking.

"Did we just see our… guardian angels?"

"No," said Dean firmly. "Impossible."

The other two just looked at him, Katty quirking a brow up at him and Sam gazing down at him flatly.

"Impossible," said Dean, more to himself than the other two.

000

The logical thing to do, after sending an extremely powerful demon back to hell, at least for the time being, and meeting one's guardian angel (whether Dean agreed with the other two on the 'angel' bit or not), is obviously to go out to lunch. So the thoroughly exhausted hunters and their friend went to a Chinese restaurant in downtown Murfreesboro and said nothing of importance or related to the supernatural until they were full to bursting; with Dean there, it took a while. Katty was beginning to think he was half human, half black hole.

"Now, _that_," said Dean, dropping his fork onto his plate with a loud clatter and leaning back in his chair after about a solid hour of stuffing his face in the most hilarious way possible, "is how a hunt should be ended. Every damn time."

Sam belched loud and long, and Katty stared at him. Dean watched her; if she was going to be with them, she needed to get used to various gaseous emissions. Sam, on a good day, could power a small rocket.

"Name it," she said, after a few minutes of staring. Sam laughed.

"What?"

"Name it," she insisted, a grin spreading across her face.

"Alright. Um, Chester?"

"Lame," she said, and then held up a finger. A few seconds later, she belched loudly, and it sounded like a very unfortunate duck. Dean and Sam both stared at her, open mouthed, and she smiled smugly.

"The _Terminator_," she said triumphantly, now smirking widely. Sam both burst out into laughter and Dean raised his eyebrows, lips twitching, a few seconds later and Katty beamed at both of them.

"So," said Sam, nudging her in the side with an elbow a few seconds later, once the laughter had subsided, although all of them were still grinning widely. "What did you think?"

"A lot," she said, raising her eyebrows and crossing her arms over her chest. "I'm just glad that thing is gone, for a while, at least-"

"Do you want to come with us?" asked Sam suddenly, looking at the younger girl with a careful but slightly expression on his face. Dean sat up straighter, brows furrowing. Katty's mouth opened and she blinked, and Dean thought, for half a second, she looked like some kind of bird.

"You mean, _with_ you? On the road, with you?"

Sam nodded tersely, and Dean stared intently at his brother. Thunder rolled outside the building, storm clouds making the whole word grey and dark.

"Sammy."

Sam's green eyes flashed to his. "We could use her, Dean, you know it. She doesn't need our tools- she can help us. You know she can."

Dean said nothing and Sam looked at Katty. She was still staring at him, with her eyes wide and her cheeks flushing. They could see some great war was going on inside her head; not for the first time, Dean was very glad he wasn't born with the mind of a woman.

"I want to," she said, very quickly, as though she couldn't stop herself. "And I sort of feel like I need to, but I- I can't. Next year's senior year, and I can't leave…. My family, and my friends."

"We did," said Dean suddenly, and Katty's blue gaze snapped onto him. She looked at him, a little helplessly, but said nothing, her brows pulled up in the middle in an apologetic, regretful expression.

They took her home and hugged her, very tightly, outside of the Impala. They told her to call if she ever needed anything, ever, and she told them she would.

She turned back at her red front door, looking at them with dark, guarded eyes. Both Winchesters thought she looked incredibly unhappy just before she stepped inside the grey house and closed the door behind her.

And then they were speeding down the highway with the windows rolled down and the classic rock blaring out of the speakers, just the two of them, the way it had always been, although they didn't say anything, both of them thinking about the girl who'd been different, the girl they'd left behind.

Forty-five minutes later, halfway to Chattanooga, Dean's phone rang. He answered it with one hand, steering with the other.

"Hello."

Sam watched his brother's eyes widen as the person on the other line spoke.

"Dean, what-"

Dean hung up and performed a highly illegal u-turn, and then they were going back the way they came.

000

When she walked into her house, Katty wasn't really sure what to do with herself. After all, it is not every day one battles a supernatural entity that has been stalking them their whole life and wins. Once would have been weird enough. Twice had to be fate.

She wasn't afraid anymore, but she didn't feel free, either.

Her mom was sitting at the bar and turned around with a smile when her daughter dropped her bag on the wooden floor with a clunk.

"It's over," said Katty simply, staring at her mother. For the first time in a long time, there was no hole in her home, no gaping presence, no fear. "It's gone."

Her mother's smile widened. "I know this isn't what mothers should say in a situation like this, but I'm proud of you."

Katty gave a forced smile, staring out at the grey sky through the window instead of at her mother's green eyes. "What should mothers say in a situation like this?"

"I have no damn clue, to be honest."

"They asked me to go with them."

The smile froze on her mother's face and she rose to her feet. "What did you tell them?"

Katty felt like someone had dropped a weight in her stomach and shackled her to a life she'd always felt wasn't the one she was supposed to lead. "That I couldn't."

There was a moment of silence, and then a sad but proud smile appeared on Karen Sherman's face.

"Katie," she said, her voice quiet, "ever since you were a little girl, you've felt these things. You've never been a normal kid."

Katty snorted and raised an eyebrow. "Thanks, mom."

"You know what I mean. Other girls wanted Barbies and boyfriends, and all you ever wanted was adventure and excitement."

Katty said nothing and just looked up at Karen from under long lashes. Her mother's conflicted smile widened and she wrapped her daughter in a hug. Katty inhaled the smells of clean laundry and mint- the smell of home.

"I've always known you'd have to do something like this one day. If you don't got with them, you'll never be able to live with yourself."

Katty pulled back, staring at her mother, her heart pounding in her chest, a very odd feeling growing somewhere in the region of her stomach.

"Go with them. You've still got senior year, so you have the whole summer. And once you graduate… it'll be your life to live, and do with what you want. Whatever happens, Katie, I'm more proud of you than I can say."

000

They pulled into her driveway and stood outside the Impala, leaning on it with their hands in their pockets. They exchanged one slightly apprehensive look, then turned their gazes back to the blue door.

After a few minutes, it opened. The boys straightened up and Sam crossed his arms over his chest. Both of them were wondering how this might change things- having a girl in their male-oriented, rock and roll and beer and guns world. Katty wasn't exactly lace and lipstick, more of a tomboy, but she was still a female. And females had a habit of shaking up their orderly little world.

Katty stepped out of her house, a bag slung over her shoulder and dragging a suitcase. Dean raised his eyebrows, wondering what was in that suitcase. Her parents came out after her, and Katty looked back at them and smiled when she was down the staircase. Her mother and father smiled back, pride glinting in their eyes and smiles, a kind of parental pride that was foreign to the Winchester brothers.

Dean felt a surge of jealousy and looked away.

The father's gaze then switched to the Winchesters, and the warmth disappeared as he glared at the Winchesters in a way that reminded Dean of high school. He let out a low whistle.

Then Katty looked at them and grinned, her blue eyes glinting. Dean nodded at her, still mindful of the father's glare, but Sammy smiled back at her as though it was a reflex. Inwardly, Dean shook his head.

"Hey," said Katty as she came to a stop in front of them. Dean nodded at her.

"Kid, before we go," he said, his voice quiet and his face unreadable, "there's a few things you could know."

She nodded, looking up at him, and there was no trace of laughter in her face now.

"You can't tell people about this. Everyone you tell, you just put in harm's way, got it? You can never let people know the things you know, the things you see- you have to carry it alone, you understand?"

"Yeah."

"There's more, though, Katty," he continued, his voice dropping still lower, his face very grim. "Kid… this will change you in ways you can't _possibly_ imagine." His eyes burned into hers and Sam watched the two of them. "All your friends, your family- you won't be like them anymore. You will have seen things that will live with you for the rest of you life, things that you will carry with you- for_ever_." His eyes flickered between hers. "Do you really think you can handle this?"

She nodded again. "Yeah."

He looked at her, hard, for another minute, before grinning and slapping the top of the Impala. "Alright then," he said. "Let's _roll_!"

"Glad you changed your mind," said Sam with a smile. He took the suitcase and put it in the trunk as Dean opened the back door for Katty and she slid in.

The boys climbed in the front and slammed the doors in unison. Sam waved at Katty's parents as Dean backed out of the driveway.

When they were on the main road, Katty leaned forward, a wide grin spreading over her round face and Dean was awarded a fantastic view down her shirt in the rearview mirror.

_Oh yeah. This was __**definitely**__ a good idea._

"So," she said, joy in her voice and in her pretty face. "Where to?"

**TBC...

* * *

**

"All These Lives," by Chris Daughtry.

A/N: Whoo boy this chapter's much longer than the last one! I hope everyone reading this story is enjoying it so far! I see it's been added to a few favorites and alerts, so thank you for that. If you have time, please PLEASE review! They're a great source of feedback, encouragement and inspiration. Even if you just wanna tell me a little about your day :D. I'm not picky.

So, what monsters would you like to see in the course of this story? I've got some ideas, but I'd love to see what you guys think. Any ships you'd like to see? Funny scenarios? Characters? TALK TO ME, MY LOVELIES.

Happy fourth of July to my fellow Americans, and have a great weekend to everyone else!

K.


	3. Baby Steps

_**Backseat Driver **_**by Katty Noir

* * *

**

_I wanna dance the tango with chance_  
_ I wanna ride on the wire_  
_ Cos nothing gets done with dust in your gun_  
_ So goodbye for a while, I'm off to explore_  
_ Every boundary and every door_

_ I wanna know where children would go_  
_ If they never learnt to be cool_  
_ Cos nothing's achieved when pushed up a sleeve_  
_ So goodbye for a while I'm out to learn more_  
_ About who I really was before_  
_ Yeah, I'm going north_  
_ Up where the hunted hide with ease_

**Chapter Two: Baby Steps**

The hitchhiker hadn't seen a car for miles, so when he heard the tell-tale roar of an engine and the squeal of tires on concrete, he turned around, thumb out-stretched as he watched the black car roar into view, loud rock music surrounding him for a moment, and then it sped past him. He caught a glimpse of two men with rugged jaws and glinting eyes and a pretty girl in the backseat.

He let his arm fall to his side.

"Jackasses," he muttered.

000

"So you're telling me that the haunted house is an H.H. Holmes style death trap?" asked Katty, leaning forward between the two front seats as they sped down the highway late in the afternoon somewhere in northern Georgia. She'd already made herself comfortable back there, four hours into the drive- she had a pillow, her computer and her sketchbook out, the latter of the three currently in her lap and her chubby, tiny hand holding a mechanical pencil, the side of her palm covered in gray. Dean had been wondering what she was drawing, but now he gave her an incredulous look in the rear-view mirror.

"You know who Holmes is?"

"Yep."

Dean shook his head, turning his eyes back to the road. "You sure are a weird kid."

She gave him an unimpressed look. "Like you can talk."

Sam snorted and Dean gave him a wide-eyed look. "Hey. Whose side are you on?"

Sam jabbed a thumb at the girl in the backseat, giving his big brother an unapologetic grin. "Hers."

Katty turned her smirk on Dean, and he fought to drag his eyes off of her full and lovely lips, bathed in the light of the sunset through the windshield.

"Smartass."

"Takes on to know one."

"_Alright_, children," said Sam, his voice amused. "Back to the house we're hunting…."

"Yeah, uh, set up a couple of years ago. People've died in it, accidents, you know." Dean glanced at Katty's face in the rearview mirror. "And since it was built, the number of missing people in the area has doubled."

Katty whistled and Sam raised his eyebrows.

"Sounds like fun."

000

It was close to four in the morning. Sam was sound asleep in the passenger seat, despite the classic rock pounding out of Dean's speakers, and Katty was wide awake in the back, stretched out, her computer in her lap and earbuds in, the light from the screen illuminating her tired face. Dean thought about the sharp rock beats floating out of his own speakers and wondered what she was listening to. He was expected something poppy- she seemed like the sort of girl who acted tough but was secretly in love with Zac Efron.

She snapped the computer shut, put it in her bag and leaned forward, taking one bud out of her ear as she did so. Dean looked at the long scratches on the left side of her chest, three of them, that weren't quite healed yet.

"How far away are we?" she asked, her voice lower than normal from tiredness. Sam grunted in his sleep, his face pressed against the window. Dean inhaled slowly through his nose, trying to fight the drowsiness in his eyes.

" 'Bout three more hours," he said, his voice hoarse and low, like Katty's.

She looked at him for a minute, something searching in her drowsy eyes.

" D' you want me to drive for a while?" she asked, eyeing his red-rimmed eyes and slightly pallid skin.

He looked back at her, thought about how much he loved his car, and thought about how tired he was.

"You hurt her, I kill you," he said as he pulled over. She gave him a salute as they switched places and Dean lay down in the back seat, his face smushed into the girl's soft pillow. He inhaled deeply, the smell of a girl who reveled in being clean surrounding him.

"You smell like flowers," he grunted. "And clean laundry." He sighed, long and slow, against the white cleanliness of the pillow. "You know how long it's been since I smelled clean laundry?"

She cackled quietly, plugging her iPhone into the jack that Sam had installed absolutely 100% without Dean's permission. "You smell like a sweaty guy, so I guess we're even."

He grunted again, falling asleep quickly as her music began to play. He thought about saying something before he realized that he was too tired to care and that it was good music anyway.

"_Carry on my wayward son- there'll be peace when you are done_-"

Not exactly Zac Efron.

Kansas. 1976. Kid had good taste.

The last thing he registered before drifting off to sleep was the glinting eyes in the review mirror and the hum of his baby as she sped up.

000

The sun was just beginning to rise, casting a pink light across the sky and in through the windows of the Impala. Katty was fighting to keep her eyes open as she pulled into the motel Dean had given her the name of. Paint was peeling off of the walls and the lights lining the parking lot were flickering sporadically.

_Nice_, Katty thought, too tired to actually say it out loud. She pulled the car, Dean's precious baby, into a spot in front of the room they'd booked and turned it off.

"Sam," she said, her voice hardly more than a rasp as she shook Sam's denim covered knee gently. She could taste her own morning breath, and it wasn't pretty. "We're at the motel, sweetie."

He awoke with a start, his eyes still half closed and his hair messy.

_Adorable._

She unfastened and twisted around as Sam got out of the car and stretched. "Dean." She patted his side. "Dean, wake up. We're here."

He groaned and reached blindly for the door handle. Katty would have smiled, but she was too tired.

The boys stumbled out of the car and into the room, more asleep than awake, while Katty hauled in their bags.

_I don't know whether I feel like a mom, sister or girlfriend. _

Something, a piece of paper on the wall, stopped her at the door. She could see into the room, where the boys were sprawled, fully clothed, on top of the beds. A tired grin spread over her face, joy swelling in her stomach.

She pulled out her phone and dialed her mothers' number- it was even earlier in Tennessee than it was here, in Florida, but she wanted to keep her mother updated as much as possible.

"Hello?" asked her mother's quiet voice.

"Hey, mom. Just wanted to let you know we're in Florida."

"How long are you gonna be there?"

"I don't know, not yet. There's a job here, but I don't know how long it'll take."

There was a rush of static. "Alright, sweetie. Kepp me updated."

"Will do. I'm gonna get some sleep."

"Alright, sweetie. Night. Well, morning."

Katty hung up, laughing quietly as she rose to her feet and turned to the open door of the motel. Then she stopped.

There were two beds, which wouldn't have been a problem, except that there was a boy on each of them. She stared at the beds and their occupants before regarding the floor, her other option, with trepidation. Then she looked back to the brothers, weighing her options.

She sighed and went over to Dean and took his shoes off before pulling the covers up over his shoulders. He made a quiet noise in his sleep and she repeated the process for Sam, then kicked off her own shoes and crawled under the covers with him, staying on the edge of the bed.

The last thing she saw before she drifted to sleep was the colors of the sunrise bathing Dean's face. In the morning, she would remember thinking it funny that the boys had taken their shirts off, but left their shoes on.

000

It was after noon when Dean reached over the still-sleeping Katty to wake up Sam. His brother's eyes opened wide and Dean held a finger to his lips, pointing to Katty. Sam sat up, rubbed his eyes, and nodded.

They got dressed in silence and left Katty sleeping, the covers pulled up over her ears, locking the door behind them.

000

The woman sitting in front of the brothers was very pretty, although she had the look of someone who'd lost a bit of weight, not from a diet or exercise, but from circumstances which prevented eating and sleeping, and her eyes were red and her face pale and drawn.

"You work for the Hell Hole?" she asked, wrapping her arms around her chest as though she could keep all of the unpleasant things in the world away from her that way.

"Not exactly," said Dean, with a small, professional smile. "We work for the investors of the house. Just doing a check-up, routine, you know. Want to make sure the house is safe."

"We know this is hard," said Sam, his voice more gentle than his brother's. "But if you can just answer a few questions for us, it'll help make sure no one else gets hurt. Your husband- he wouldn't have wanted that."

As the woman stared at Sam as though he was her own personal savior, Dean had to repress the urge to roll his eyes. This was pretty sappy, even for his brother.

The woman nodded, taking a breath and steeling herself. "Okay. We- my husband and I- were just walking- and we'd gone into one of the rooms. One that looked like, um, an asylum."

Her eyes began to glisten and the boys shifted, uncomfortable.

"We'd only been in the room for a few minutes," she said, her voice wavering, "when the lights went out. We thought it was part of the- the ride, you know."

The boys nodded.

"But… then the lights came back on… and he was just gone. I thought it was still part of the game, and he'd come back out later. But he never did."

She started sobbing. "He never did."

Dean nudged Sam as they walked to woman's white front door and walked down the porch steps. "I think we should go to this house ourselves."

"Yeah," said Sam, his voice and face grim. "I do too."

000

"What do you think?" asked Sam as they pulled into the motel parking lot later that afternoon, after making a visit to the haunted house named (aptly, it appeared) the Hell Hole.

"I think we should check out the beach," said Dean with a grin. Sam gave him a look as they climbed out of the car and Dean shrugged.

"Hell, Sammy, I don't know. This is weird. People just disappear, in front of their friends' eyes. And I'm tellin' you, some of the bodies in that house looked a little too real."

"Smelled that way, too," said Sam grimly, unlocking the door and opening it. Katty looked up at them from a rickety old table and grinned.

"Wassup, broskiis," she said, closing the computer in front of her.

"Sleep well?" asked Dean, his voice sarcastic.

"Did _you_?" she asked, still grinning.

"Someone took my shoes off."

"Yeah, that was me. Might wanna think about washing your socks every other month, too."

He stared at her before shaking his head. "I _never_ take my shoes off when I sleep- you some kinda weirdo with a foot fetish or somethin'?"

She winked. "Caught me."

"You two are idiots," said Sam.

"You love me anyway," said Dean and Katty in unison before staring at each other with surprise on their faces.

"That was weird," said Dean.

"I agree," said Katty. They eyed each other warily. Sam looked upwards, torn between exasperation and amusement.

"Dean, what happened to going to the beach?"

If Katty had been a dog, her ears would have pricked up. As it was, her eyes widened and she stood up a little straighter. "Beach?" she said, before her face fell. "I don't have a swimsuit."

"Doesn't matter," said Dean, giving her a smug smirk. "We're going anyway.

Twenty minutes later they were strolling along the shore, their pants rolled up to their knees, holding their shoes and walking through the water as the brothers told Katty what had happened to the people who disappeared in the middle of the Hell Hole. Dean was walking backwards in front of the other two and stumbled more than once.

"Most of them have looked like- equipment malfunctions, or part of the ride, or something like that. The light's'll go off, flicker like crazy, and everyone thinks it's a part of the ride. Then the lights come back on and someone's gone. Get to end of the thing, your husband's still gone, and then they realize it's not just a ride."

Katty's brow furrowed and her mouth opened, just slightly. "Have all the missing people been guys?"

Dean and Sam exchanged a look, their brows furrowing downwards. Sam nodded and looked back to the girl. "Yeah."

" 'Kay, what about the other people who've gone missing? The ones who weren't at the house?"

"Yeah," said Sam, a little surprised. "I think they're all been men too."

"Sweet. Talked to the person who owns the place?"

"Doing that tomorrow."

"Then who wants to go for a swim?" she asked, her grin glinting and her eyes wide.

Dean scoffed. "None of us have swimsuits."

She grinned before bending down and splashing water on Sam, who laughed before looking at her with a warning gleam in his eyes, water dripping off his bangs down his face. Dean rolled his eyes and scoffed.

"You _don't_ wanna do that, Kat," he said, his voice dangerous despite the grin.

Dean watched with raised brows as Katty, cackling gleefully, splashed his brother again, and then as Sam grabbed the girl, throwing her over his shoulder, shrieking and flailing and laughing, and wading out into the ocean before dunking her under. Katty resurfaced, soaking wet and laughing, the yellow sun glinting off the water on her skin and dripping hair, before jumping up and wrapping her arms around Sam's neck, taking him under with her for a second time with an enormous splash and a high pitched shriek that Dean sincerely hoped didn't come from his brother.

"C'mon, Dean!" shouted Sam when he resurfaced. He was grinning, his whole face wet and glistening and his eyes happy in a simple sort of way that Dean wasn't used to. Katty burst out of the sea too, gasping and grinning and laughing, her shirt sticking to her curvy little body.

"I'll pass," called Dean. Sam's grin turned positively evil.

"Oh, no you won't," he said with laughter bursting in his voice, and Sam and Katty began to run through the water to Dean, who suddenly felt as though he should fear for his life.

"Sammy-" he said warningly, backing away with his hands up, stumbling a little over the sand. Katty and his brother had an identical and troubling glint in their eyes.

Then, before he knew what was happening, there was a golden blur flying at him and then he was lying in the gritty sand and Katty was sitting smugly on his chest, water dripping off of her hair and clothes and nose into his face. The sunlight hit her just right, sending her whole face into darkness and making her hair glow like she had a halo.

_Seventeen. Seventeen. What would Sammy do. What would Sammy do._

Sammy leaned over his face, grinning widely and blocking out the light. Dean squinted up at him.

"Traitor."

"Ocean time, big brother."

Katty got off his chest, still dripping water on him, and grabbed him under the arms as Sam took hold of his feet.

"Aw, you have got to be kidding me!" shouted Dean as he was hoisted into the air. Sam and Katty were laughing so hard it was a miracle they were able to keep hold of the thrashing Dean. Dean swore seconds before they submerged him, fully clothed, into the warm, salty ocean water.

000

"I can't _believe_ you two," said Dean two hours later as Sam shut the door to their motel room behind him, still grinning widely. "Just throw me in the goddamn _ocean_-" he peeled off his soaking and salty shirt and threw it at Katty, who caught it easily, if gracelessly. "What if there were sharks in there?"

Sam just looked at him as though he were an idiot and gave a short but loud laugh.

And then they noticed Katty. She was holding Dean's thoroughly soaked shirt as though it was the Holy Grail, staring at Dean with wide eyes, her mouth slightly open in a look of reverence.

"This," she said reverently, staring at him with a kind of vapid blankness, "has your sweat on it."

Dean and Sam exchanged a horrified glance, both of them more than a little worried, and then they looked back at Katty, whose lips were twitching. She threw the shirt to Sam, and the three burst out laughing.

"Alright, ya losers," she said, shoving Sam out of the doorway to the bathroom. "I'm taking a shower."

"Thank God," said Dean as the door swung shut. "You STINK!"

The only answer was a snort that tried to pass itself off as a laugh and the sound of running water.

Sam looked to Dean. Dean gestured at the door with a thumb, a loose grin spreading over his face. "She likes me."

Sam gave Dean a look that was more ferocious than normal as he pulled his sweats up around his waist. "Seventeen, dude."

"Oh, come on, you're thinkin' it too. She's hot."

Sam rolled his eyes.

The boys were already in their pajamas, or sweat pants and little else, lounging on their beds, when the door cracked open and steam billowed out. Then a soaking wet and dripping head poked out, grinning apologetically and trying to blink the water out of her eyelashes. Dean caught a glimpse of a neck with wet strands sticking to it.

"Wanna hand me my bag?"

Sam passed it to her wordlessly, looking down carefully. Dean smirked.

"Might wanna put some clothes on," he called as she shut the door. She emerged a few minutes later, in baggy yellow pants with what looked like cakes on them and a loose t-shirt, wet hair falling around her face and square framed, black glasses on.

The brothers blinked.

"I'm sexy, I know," she said, dropping her bag on the floor and flopping down onto the bed she apparently shared with Sam.

"Eh," said Sam, and she made a very unattractive and hilarious face at him.

"Since when do you wear glasses?" asked Dean, looking at her from his pillow.

"Since always."

"Never seen you in them."

"I took out my contacts last night after you two fell asleep, then put 'em in when you were gone this morning.

Dean regarded her for a minute. "I like the contacts more."

She made a face at him and he threw a pillow at her, but it missed her and instead smacked Sam over the head.

"Get some sleep, kiddo," said Dean as Sam glared at him.

She glanced over at Sam, so quickly that Dean almost missed it. "Don't count on it."

They watched TV for a few hours and laughed and talked. They had shared some intense moments together, but the brothers and Katty actually knew very little about each other, as far a plain facts went.

By the end of the night, or by the time they drifted off to sleep, the boys had come to the conclusion that she was absolutely insane.

And unbelievably hilarious.

The brothers found out that her birthday was November 24, her favorite color was blue, she had a thing for Arabic guys, she was an artist (and not just someone who called them self an artist but someone who could capture a person's soul with a few strokes of a pen or brush), that she missed London more than she'd ever missed a person, and that she thought their dad was "ridiculously sexy", which was a little bit awkward but really funny at the same time, and Dean now _really_ wanted to see how John would react to this girl.

Katty, in turn, found out that Dean had actually been older when he lost his virginity than Sammy was (Dean was seventeen and her name was Cass, Sam had been fifteen and her name was Gabrielle), Dean's favorite movie was Singing in the Rain, ("You tell anyone else that," he threatened, pointing a warning finger, "I'm gonna feed you to a werewolf." Katty promised him that her lips were sealed) Sam thought Hilary Duff was sexy as hell, and both of them had cried when they read the seventh Harry Potter book.

The last time he'd laughed this hard, Dean thought, was two weeks before Sam got his scholarship, when the two of them and Dad got completely smashed and gone to a gay bar by mistake. They'd gotten thrown out and had spent a few hours in jail.

It'd been worth it. John had laughed so hard he'd cried.

Dean and Sam looked at each other over the sleeping form of the girl.

"I like her," Dean mouthed, pointing. Sam nodded.

"Me too."

They turned their lights out at the same time, engulfing the room in darkness.

000

_Katty Sherman's Diary_

_May 30, 2010_

_It's real. It's all real. I am in a car with Sam and Dean Winchester, it's real, and I was right._

_Hell yes._

_000  
_

Dean woke up the next morning surprisingly alert. He stretched, the soft white sheets of the motel bed rustling around his movements, and he sighed, unusually content.

He looked over and saw a golden head of hair next to his brother and his brow furrowed in confusion.

And then he remembered.

"Ah, damn," he said quietly. Katty inhaled and stretched, opening her eyes with what looked to be a great effort.

"Mornin', sleeping beauty," he mumbled, barely awake himself. She just looked at him, bleary eyed and messy haired, her mouth open slightly, clearly nowhere near coherent.

"Ghh," she said. Sam groaned and peered at his brother from over Katty.

"Dean, what time is it? He asked, his voice tired and slurring.

Dean looked at the clock, groaned, and let his head fall back against the pillow.

"Six thirty seven."

They all groaned and Sam shut the blinds next to his and Katty's bed.

"Night," they said, in unison again, and then turned their separate ways and nestled their faces in their pillows.

A few minutes later, their deep, steady breathing filled the room.

000

The woman knocked on the door, a bored expression on her face. Only eight in the morning, and it was already baking hot and humid, the sun beating down on the back of her sweaty neck.

"Housekeeping."

There was no answer. She sighed and knocked again. "HOUSEKEEPING."

"GO AWAY." Three voices bellowed in return. A few birds took off from the ill cared for palm trees in the parking lot. The woman blinked at the door in surprise.

"Damn housekeep," muttered Dean, readjusting himself on his pillow. Sam said something unintelligible and slurred and Katty gave a single, loud grunt.

000

Dean's incoherent dreams returned to yellow eyes, red thongs, and pies.

It was ten when Dean woke up properly, and that was only because, even in a sleep-numbed state, he had smelled coffee.

He opened one bleary eye, the other still closed and covered by his pillow. He saw Sam, still sound asleep, and then Katty, in jean shorts and the shirt she'd fallen asleep in with her hair sticking up in every direction, standing up at the coffee maker.

"Nghh," said Dean.

"I understand," said Katty without turning around.

"You make enough for me?" rumbled Dean, watching her.

"Sure did," she said, and turned around holding two mugs. Dean rolled onto his back and stared at her.

"I'm so, so glad Sammy talked me into bringing you."

She raised her eyebrows as she sat on the edge of the bed and handed him his motel-issued mug.

"Love you too," she said, her voice sarcastic and her eyebrow quirked. Dean took a swig of coffee and smacked his lips.

"Kiddo, trust me, right now you're about my favorite person on the planet." He pointed at her. "You gave me coffee."

"Thought I was your favorite person," grunted Sam, half of his face still sunk deep in his pillow, an arm thrown over the indention in the bed where Katty had been lying.

Dean snorted. "Yeah, right. You've never brought me coffee."

Sam glared at him with one eye. Katty, who had been looking back and forth between them, now said innocently, "Such a healthy, loving relationship."

"Screw you," said the brothers in unison.

The brothers were in their suits, with fake badges and guns in the holsters, and Dean gave Katty a credit card with orders to go buy clothes that looked "authoritative". Because, you see, Katty's wardrobe consisted of cut-off shorts, t-shirts, and jeans, with maybe two shirts that were a little dressy. Not exactly the right costuming for a job that featured the impersonation of various government officials.

"No leather," added Sam. Katty and Dean both turned to stare at him. Dean blinked and Katty just looked at him.

"I saw authoritative, and you think leather?"

"Kinky," said Katty simply.

They went their separate ways, Katty to a mall, and Sam and Dean to the Hole to talk to the owner.

The brothers returned to the motel room before Katty did, with information that was beginning to piece everything together.

"She's some kind of god, Dean, cause she's definitely not a ghost or a spirit."

"Yeah, so, what, she's getting her own sacrifices now?"

Sam shoved pictures at his brother, pictures of Holmes' original house and a newspaper clipping of the opening. "No, I don't think so. Look." He pointed to the newspaper, and they saw a grainy face that was clearly the owner they'd just been talking to.

"She was a _victim_," said Sam empathetically, raising his eyebrows. Dean was nodding.

"Except she couldn't be killed, since she's a god. So now she's gone on and started taking revenge on men who look like Holmes."

Sam raised his eyebrows. "Hell has no fury like a woman scored."

Dean looked at Sam out of the corner of his eyes. "Wow," he said vehemently "Loser."

"It's a quote, _Dean_."

"Speaking of losers," said Dean, brow furrowing, "where's the kid?"

"Right here," said Katty as the door creaked open and she walked in, carrying several bags. She tossed the credit card to Dean before collapsing onto the bed she shared with Sam.

"I don't know about you two," she said, "but I am knackered."

"Get used to it, sister," said Dean unsympathetically.

"You're about to get a lot more tired," said Sam, smiling ironically. Katty raised her eyebrows.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Dean punched her in the shoulder with a wide grin and a glint in his eyes that only hunting could inspire. "Going after a god tonight, kiddo."

She stared at him flatly. "A god."

"Yup."

There were a few seconds of silence as the Winchesters looked at Katty with varying degrees of smugness and amusement of their faces.

"In that case, I'm gonna take a nap."

She was asleep in a matter of seconds, her face smashed against the pillow, kicking her shoes off without looking. Dean looked to Sam incredulously and his brother just shrugged.

"Teenager," he said by way of explanation.

000

It was ten o'clock at night when the trio filed into the Impala, shot guns and salt (the default weaponry of hunters) at the ready.

"Alright, kiddo," said Dean. "This is how it'll go."

He glanced at the mirror to see Katty looking back at him, wide-eyed and attentive.

"We're gonna find this bitch, and we gotta kill her. Only way to do that is with wooden bullets." He held three up. "This is all we got, so we can't waste 'em." He tossed her one. "You stay behind us. Aim for the heart."

She nodded.

"And kid?" added Dean.

"Yeah?"

He met her eyes in the mirror. "Don't miss."

They stood outside the ill-lit 'haunted' house and discussed tactics.

"She lives in there, man," said Sam, gesturing sharply to the house dark house underneath the starry summer sky. The house, rickety and designed to look like something out of a nightmare, didn't fit with the palm trees and the stars. "Let's just go in there and find her."

"Dude, it's like her playground in there. Her turf. She can play with us like barbies if she wants to."

"Disturbing mental imagery," said Katty, still staring at the boarded windows in the rickety house.

"So we go in, stick together, find her, and smoke her. It's not like this is our first time doing this, Sammy."

Sam looked at Katty pointedly and then back at his brother and Dean rolled his eyes. Katty glanced at them, a little awkwardly, very aware that she was a bit of a liability. "C'mon, man," said Dean, his voice exasperated, as he gestured at the teen, "she can take care of herself."

"Yeah, great plan, Dean. Just- just brilliant."

"Can it, Sammy." He turned to Katty and she looked back at him with her wide-eyed stare. "Alright, kid, this should be pretty straight forward, but I want you to stay on my ass, no matter what happens, okay?"

She gave him a grin that would have looked at home on a shark and that changed the planes of her face. Dean started. "If you insist."

He stared at her, half of her face in shadow, dark eyes glinting at him, and that grin. "_Perv_ert.

Sam laughed and Dean shook his head. "Let's roll, team."

Dean kicked in the front door with a loud "bang" and then they were in, guns drawn and eyes peeled. Dean kept an eye on Katty, but she seemed to be handling herself well.

They searched the first three creaking floors and found nothing.

Dean sighed, gesturing around with his gun. "Of course the bitch is hiding on the top floor."

There were double doors with scratches hatching across them and brass knockers. Katty raised an eyebrow. "Original, this one."

Dean and Katty stood to one side of the door, leaning against the walls with their guns leveled, and Sam kicked it in. A gust of air billowed out and Dean looked to Katty and then they jumped into the room, guns held to the level of their eyes as dust and warm night air swirled around them.

The woman was standing with her back to them. They kept the guns on her as Sam and Dean slowly moved to her sides, Katty still blocking the exit.

"Over five thousand years," said the god, staring out the open window, her face bathed in moonlight and the wind twirling her hair about her face. "Five thousand years, and I'd never been scared before I met him."

She looked to Dean, smiling with tears running down her face. "I'm a god. We don't know how to let go."

She looked at Sam. "We can't."

They said nothing and she sighed, turning to face the moon again.

"Do it, then," she said, the sound echoing around the room. "The men are in the basement. End it all."

They raised their guns, and three simultaneous bangs echoed around the room.

They called the police, bailed before they arrived, and then went to a late night showing of a movie none of them were interested in.

They were mostly quiet on the drive to the motel, too. And then Katty, who'd looked thoughtful for most of the drive and all the the movie, leaned forward.

"I thought," she said, her voice purposefully calm and conversational, "it would be more complicated than that. I mean, we were only here two days- in the TV show," her voice stayed extremely neutral, "it was always way more complex than that."

It was the first time, excepting that meeting in IHOP the day they'd met, that any of them had mentioned the fact that all this had played on a TV screen. Katty felt awkward talking about it, and Dean and Sam just thought it was weird and were afraid to ask about what happened to them. Katty didn't offer the information up; that worried them.

"Sometimes it is," said Sam with a half shrug. "Other times it's-"

"-in and out," said Dean, glancing at Katty in the rearview mirror. "Baby steps, kid."

She nodded.

And when they got back to the motel room, Dean checked his voicemail with a shocked and angry look on his face before pulling Sam into the bathroom, where they had a very loud conversation.

Dean put his phone on speaker and played the message for Sam, his eyes glued on his brother's face as Sam's expression went from surprise to shock to confusion to anger and then to resignation.

"_Dean,_" said their father's voice, crackling and unclear over the speakers. "_Stay away from that case. And stay away from the girl. Don't contact her, don't do anything with her, drop her by the side of the road and leave her there."_

There was a sigh that came out as a rush of static. "_I can't explain now. But trust me; this will not end well. I've got a case for you. In London, the Tower of London. There's been deaths, they look like suicides, but the victims are tied, they all handle the ravens. Go to the deposit box in Atlanta; there are passports and credit cards."_

There was a click. Sam met Dean's eyes.

"What do we do?" asked Dean, his voice hard and his eyes matching. Sam scoffed.

"About what?"

"About the kid, for starters," Dean hissed, eyes flashing meaningfully to the bathroom door.

"Well, we're definitely not leaving her by the side of the road," said Sam in a voice that left no room for argument. Dean argued anyway.

"Dad-"

"_Dad_ isn't _here_, Dean," hissed Sam. He gestured at the door. "She is. He didn't give us a reason, he didn't give us anything except for the conviction he always has that you'll do whatever he says whenever he says it just _because_ he says it!" Sam shook his head, smiling a hard and defiant smile. "Not this time, Dean. I'm not leaving a kid, a good kid who could be a really good hunter, just because he says to."

Dean looked at his brother for a few moments, his mind turning, before he nodded. "You're right."

Sam started. "I am?"

They came out, a few minutes later, and looked to Katty, who pretended like she hadn't been listening.

"Dad gave us our next job," said Sam, his voice weary and a little frustrated. Katty sat up straighter, eyes widening.

"Where?" she asked. The brothers looked at each other, a gleam of excitement in their eyes despite their pale faces and drawn expressions.

"London."

**TBC...

* * *

**

"Going North" by Missy Higgins.

A/N: Fun stuff in the next chapter. I feel like these are sort of long; do you guys want me to keep it like this or split it up into smaller segments?

I KNOW YOU'RE THERE. I SEE YOU. YES, YOU. -SQUINTS-. NOW. REVIEW.

PLEASE.

Love,

K.


	4. The Hunter's Apprentice

_**Backseat Driver **_**by Katty Noir

* * *

**

_I'll be reaching for the stars with you, honey _  
_Who cares if no one else believes _  
_Yeah, so I, set fire to everyone around _  
_But you- I told you _  
_I told you we'd do it_

_So ha, ha, ha, ha..._

**Chapter Three: The Hunter's Apprentice**

A perk of having access to other peoples' credit cards is that one is easily able to purchase first class, no stop, round tickets from JFK airport in New York City to Gatwick, London and back again.

The plane was still on the runway and the trio who were still not quite used to each other was settling into their seats amid the chatter of other travelers. Their fellow passengers were having a hard time deciding which of the trio was more excited. The tallest of the three was relatively calm, rolling his eyes at the antics of the considerably more hyperactive other two. The second man looked like a kid on Christmas, although he also appeared slightly nervous, pressing buttons with a wide, crinkly grin on his (ridiculously pretty, some of the other passengers noted) face, moving his seat, his eyes lit up like Christmas lights. The girl (almost as pretty as the man) was bouncing up and down in her seat, glowing and cackling quietly as she and the other excited man exchanged grinning, excited remarks.

A woman in her late forties shook her head and put on her headphones with perfectly manicured hands over impossibly straight and impeccably dyed hair, thinking that this nine hour flight might end up feeling much, much longer with flight mates like this.

_Although_, she thought, eyeing the tallest man as he put a bag in the luggage rack above his seat, _those boys looked positively divine._

She eyed the girl and wondered what she was doing with boys like that. The tall boy looked over and saw the woman staring.

She gave him a promising smirk.

He gave her a tight smile and sat down quickly.

Dean was aware of the fact that he and Katty were driving the other passengers (including Sam) up the cold, metallic walls. He didn't care.

"Hey," he said, grinning widely and elbowing Katty in the side. "Check this out."

He pressed a blue button and the seat slid back with a soft hiss, transforming slowly into a bed. He and Katty stared at each other with wide eyes for a moment before cackling gleefully. Dean pulled his seat back up and Sam pulled a red airline-issued sleep mask over his eyes. Katty and Dean exchanged another look, still laughing, and then Dean leaned over with the sound of leather moving against leather and he pulled the mask away from Sam's face. Sam squinted over at him at him.

"Who the hell are you?" asked Dean in his deep voice, lips twitching. "Britney Spears?"

"Cinderella?" asked Katty, leaning over too. Sam gave them both an icy glare.

"Screw you both very much."

"I've had better offers," said Katty, shrugging, her grin darkening. Sam stared at her, the light from the window hitting the curve of her round face, sending her dimples into deep shadow.

"Yeah, and you're my brother," said Dean, wrinkling his nose. "That's kinda…." His voice dropped and he gave a half shrug, pursing his lips and cocking his head to the side. "Incest."

Sam groaned, his head falling back against the dark blue, leather headrest. "God, this is gonna be a long flight."

Identical and terrifying grins spread over Katty and Dean's faces.

000

Sam was soon asleep despite the roar of the engine with the help of Dramamine, but Katty and Dean were still wide awake as the clouds rolled past outside their tiny window, trying to stifle their near hysterical laughter as they made fun of the sleeping Sam, ear buds from Katty's iPhone in Katty's left ear and Dean's right. Sam had been trying, since they'd been back together, to get Dean to listen to some new music; Katty had been with them for four days and succeeded.

Dean didn't want to think about what that might mean, but the grin froze on his face as he looked over at her, florescent lights illuminating her face, her dimples deep and her eyes downcast and glinting mischievously.

Katty, who had more than a little artistic talent, was drawing the sleeping Winchester brother, except the picture was warped, features accentuated, and it was hilarious. Dean looked up at Katty, the moment broken, hands on his stomach and tears in his eyes.

"God," he said, his voice choked, letting his head fall back against the seat, "I'm so glad we picked you up. I haven't laughed this hard in years."

Katty began wordlessly enhancing the mole next to Sam's lip without a word and Dean began laughing again.

Sam woke up a few hours into the flight (they were now over the ocean and it was pitch dark outside the windows) when they brought out dinner. The brothers, who had only flown once, anywhere (and that was a job) and had never been out of the country, were ecstatic, as the idea of eating real food at 35,000 feet was a novelty to them. Katty, however, had flown to London twice, and while she was excited at the prospect of both a place she loved and of food, there was nothing about plane food in itself that she found particularly alluring.

The stewardess placed the plates wrapped in aluminum foil onto the fold-down trays in front of the hunters and their apprentice. Dean gave her a wink and she smirked back at him. Katty and Sam both rolled their eyes.

"I'll be back with your drinks in just a minute," she said, looking right at Dean, somehow making the statement flirty as she pushed her cart away. Dean gave a low whistle and leaned over Katty to Sam.

"So, Sammy," he said, a roguish grin on his face. "Just how big are the airplane bathrooms? Cause I might need to-" he nodded at the stewardess. "You know."

Katty gave him a scathing look. "They're tiny, you idiot."

The stewardess came back with a hard look on her face and slammed Dean's drink onto his tray, some of it sloshing onto him and then very gently set down Katty and Sam's drinks before stalking off without a word. Dean stared after her and Katty burst out laughing.

"Guess she heard you," said Sam, his own voice strained from holding back laughter.

"C'mon!" Dean called after the stewardess. She continued walking down the isle. Dean gestured to Katty, who was bending down to take a bite of her spaghetti. "How do you know I wasn't talking about her?"

Katty looked up, startled, noodles sticking out of her mouth.

" 'oo 'etter no' 'ave 'een," she said indignantly around the lump of noodles in her mouth. Dean gave her an apologetic smile.

"Sorry, kid."

Sam rolled his eyes.

Katty soon realized that there was a world of difference between business class meals and first class meals. To Sam, food was pretty much food, no matter where it was eaten. Dean, however, was in heaven, although the offended stewardess was doing her best to make him miserable, which Dean found annoying and Katty and Sam found hilarious.

"Maybe you two can have hate sex," said Sam, trying to stifle laughter.

"Yeah, that's always fun," said Katty with a glinting grin and a subtle shift of her eyebrows.

The stewardess treated them _all_ rather icily after that.

000

Dean decided, after switching Tube lines three times, having to go back once, and the walking to their hotel (all of this being led by Katty and in the midst of jet-lag) that he didn't like London much. It was too crowded, smelled funny, people drove on the wrong side of the road, and he missed his car. Katty, who 'missed London more than she'd ever missed a person', had a peaceful sort of grin on her face as she stared out the window of the hotel and down on the bustling city street, and every now and then she would flail and jump around for a few seconds, causing the Winchesters and anyone near them on the street to give her an odd look and a wide berth. Sam, too, who was interested in 'culture' and other stuff like that, had a dopey smile on his face. He'd almost gotten run over out in the street because he was so busy staring at everything around him and pointing out things like architecture.

Dean shook his spiky brown head. If he believed in stuff like that, he'd say Sammy and Katty were made for each other.

And Katty wouldn't let them go to sleep, either. Dean had collapsed onto a bed and had just found something to complain about when Katty told him to get up; they were going out. Dean raised his head off of the pillow and stared at her incredulously. She was moving around and pulling clothes out of her bag despite how tired and disorientated she was.

"Don't fall asleep," she told him warningly. "I'm gonna take a shower when Sam's done and then we're gonna go out."

"_Out_?" snapped Dean, letting his head fall back against the pillow. "Why the hell would we go out?"

"Jet lag," said Sam, emerging from the bathroom in a cloud of steam with a towel wrapped around his waist. "If we go to sleep now, you'll still be on American time."

"_So_?"

Sam gave his brother a smile that was more than a little condescending. "So we're in _England_, Dean."

"Thanks, genius," said Dean shortly. "Didn't get that."

"Alright, you two," said Katty, who was clearly trying not to stare at the half naked Sam.

Dean smirked at her. "Put your eyes back in your head, kid."

To his surprise, Katty turned red and pushed past Sam into the bathroom without a word. Sam looked at the closed door and then turned a nonplussed gaze to Dean.

Dean burst out laughing.

"Put some clothes on, Sammy," he said, still chuckling.

"What was that all about?" asked Sam, still with a confused look on his face, as he buttoned up his pants. Dean cackled and put his hands behind his head.

"Think our little hitchhiker might have a crush on you."

Sam stared, his shirt halfway on. The brothers looked at each other for a moment.

"Okay, put your shirt back on," said Dean flatly. "You look like an idiot."

Sam finished pulling on his shirt and then sat on his bed and looked at Dean with wide eyes.

"Are you being serious, man?"

"Dude, do I _ever_ joke about getting laid?"

"Well… what should I do?"

"Dude!" said Dean, laughing and sitting up. "Sam, _you're_ the one that's been telling _me_ she's seventeen!"

"Yeah," said Sam, brow furrowing as he looked away. "You're right."

Dean stared at him. "Come on!" he burst out after a minute and Sammy looked up at him, startled. "You dig her, Sammy. Don't deny it," he said warningly as Sam opened his mouth, pointing a finger at his little brother. "I know you, man. She digs you. And, Sammy, not only is she a hunter, and _doesn't_ think you belong in a nuthouse, but she's friggin' hot."

The brothers looked at each other, Sam still thinking deeply and Dean grinning widely.

"Yeah," said Sam slowly. "But… _seventeen_, Dean."

Dean just stared at his brother, shaking his head. "This is just sad."

"Not everyone has your complete lack of a moral center, or lack of morals in _general_, Dean."

"Hey, man," said Dean, raising his hands and shrugging. "All I'm saying is," he pointed at the door from behind which they heard the sounds of a shower, "you're not gonna get another chance like this."

Sam just sighed and avoided Dean's gaze.

When Katty hadn't emerged for half an hour, they began to wonder; they weren't really used to constant female presence and didn't know if this was normal behavior or not. Dean knocked on the door.

"Kat?" he called, leaning his head towards the door. He could hear her moving around and humming to herself. "You drown in there?"

"I'm not that short, idiot."

Dean chuckled and looked to Sam with a shrug. "Making fun of her is therapeutic. You should try it."

"I heard that!"

Dean leaned back to the door as Sam shook his head, a smile on his face. "You were supposed to. What the hell is taking so long?"

The door opened and she walked out, the scent of coconuts and lilies and hairspray floating out after her. Dean blinked and stared after her, turning around and following her.

"Are you wearing make up?"

"I am a female," she said, turning back at staring at him, her eyes under smoky lids glinting. Dean cracked a grin, still staring.

"Hadn't noticed."

It wasn't a complete lie. He'd noticed she was female (it was hard not too, with breasts like hers) but as she normally donned a ponytail, no make-up, and loose t-shirts, this was the moment Dean realized that she was, in fact, a woman, and that she was more than a tomboy- when she tried, she could be stunningly beautiful.

"I think you look wonderful," said Sam, and she beamed at him. Dean smirked. Sam rolled his eyes.

And then they were back out in a city that Dean already detested, trying to just spend enough time until it was late enough for them to fall asleep.

Tomorrow the fun would start. But today the brothers just let Katty drag them around, her enthusiasm rubbing off on them (though Dean would never admit it) as she chattered away, the summer London wind blowing her hair around her face as she gestured wildly, leading them down the streets of the ancient and beautiful city, telling them stories and histories and everything in between.

It didn't escape Dean's notice that the girl was getting many stares- most of them appreciative, and some of them from his brother. He didn't know what to think of that.

When the sun was low in the sky and there was an almost golden light falling over the city, she led them to a park with trees and ponds and ducks and rolling hills that seemed like it was out of a storybook and they lay back in the soft grass, staring up at the cloudless blue sky. There was a peace in each other's company and in the foreign location.

"Okay," Dean admitted after about fifteen minutes of silence and the wind blowing past them. "This is pretty good, as far as our lives go."

"Baby," said Katty, her voice low and happy as she grinned up at the sky, "take it from someone who's done the whole 'normal life' thing. This is good for _anyone_."

Dean grunted, unwilling to let himself be in a good mood. He was, after all, still jetlagged. And he hated London for…

His brow furrowed. What had been the reasons?

"It'll be better when I get something to eat," he growled.

Katty craned her neck back, her hair spreading over the grass, and looked at him. "Did you grab th' money?"

Dean patted his pocket, craning back his own head and looking her, upside down, in the eye. "Yep."

Katty rolled to her feet and brushed grass off her back and the backs of her thighs before running a hand through her messy hair to dislodge the green blades sticking to the strands. "Let's go get you some food then."

000

It was around nine when they got back to the hotel, and, to Dean's great indignation, it was still completely light out.

"It's summer in England, sweetie," said Katty from the bathroom as she took her contacts out. "The days are longer."

"Well, that's- that's stupid," said Dean venomously, yanking the curtains shut. Sam flopped back onto his bed and shook his head.

"You gonna try to blame the universe for your problems now too?"

"Screw you," said Dean.

Katty gave him a shark-like grin as she walked to the door and leant on it. "I've had better offers," she said, and shut the door in his shocked face.

"Unbelievable." He yanked his shirt off and climbed into the fluffy white bed. Katty came back out in her completely non-sexy PJs (of course the one girl who can sense demons was a complete tom boy, if one with huge boobs and gorgeous eyes) and flicked the light off, although the golden light of the sunset filtered in through the light green curtains.

"If either of you snore," grunted Dean, slipping on his side and nestling his face into the thick pillow, "I'm getting a shotgun." He pointed a lazy finger at them.

"Go to sleep, Dean," said the other two in unison.

They all fell asleep quickly, their deep and even breathing filling the room- none of them snored. If a bystander had opened the door at that moment (assuming, of course, that this hypothetical person was not beaned in the face by the butt of a shotgun) they would have seen two beds, both of them white, a shock of brown, short hair on one pillow, and then, on the other bed, golden hair spilling over a pillow and longer brown hair on the other pillow, all of this bathed in golden green light.

But there was no bystander. It was just them; the hunters and their apprentice.

The room was peaceful and silent when Dean awoke the next morning. The golden green light that he'd fallen asleep in was replaced by the gray light of dawn filtering through the green curtains. It was only five in the morning.

Ah, the joys of jet lag.

After lying in his bed for another half hour, Dean realized he wasn't going to be falling back asleep anytime soon and he shot a murderous glare at the sleeping blonde girl across the room, although this act was completely pointless, considering her back was to him and she was still asleep anyway.

"Y' really owe us fer this one, dad," he muttered to himself and to his absent father as he threw the covers back and sat up. He thought for a minute about waking the other two to share his misery, but he knew what Sammy was like when he didn't get his beauty sleep and he had the feeling that a half-awake Katty would either be potentially deadly or as interesting as watching paint dry, and he didn't feel like dealing with either at this point.

He grabbed her bag instead and set it on the polished desk before rummaging through it and he pulled out three things- her camera, her little black sketchbook, and her computer.

He looked at the camera first. There were a few pictures of he and Sam, taken when they weren't expecting it, in the Impala, mostly. There was one picture of the three of them, sitting on a bed in the motel back in Tennessee. Then there were a few older ones, a few of her and her friends (her _pretty_ friends, Dean thought) and one of her in front of a window, looking stunningly beautiful.

Dean shook his head and tossed the camera back into the bag and opened the sketchbook. He flipped through the pages, his jaw dropping a little more with each one. The girl was a_ genius_. Every one of the sketches, even the thirty-second scribbles and the Disney look-a-likes, were vibrantly alive. There were quotes, too, and drawings of people she knew- and, at the very end, there was a picture of he and Sam.

Dean stared, heart pounding. The sketches were separate, Dean looking one way and Sam another, but there was a unity to it. And above it, drawn looser and less accurately, was John Winchester.

Dean was completely floored. A few seconds later he snapped out of it and went back, flipping through and searching for a quote that had hit a little too close to home.

He found it and read it to himself, muttering quietly, over and over again.

"_Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look long into an abyss, the abyss also looks long into you._"

Yeah. _Way_ too close to home.

He closed the sketchbook and put it back in her bag, although the picture of he and his family and that quote were burned into his mind.

He opened her computer and pulled up firefox.

If he had to be up at an unholy hour, he might as well do something productive about it.

000

"Dean?" asked Katty, two hours later. "Why is there 'Busty Blonde Lesbian Beauties' on my computer?"

Sam slammed down his coffee and gave Dean a look that should, by all rights, have made him burst into flames. Dean just grinned shamelessly.

"Don't we have a ghost to catch?" he asked as he held open the door for the other two. "Come on."

Then they were out in the city again, being led by the directionally challenged teenager to the Tower of London.

"Uh," said Sam, staring at the tall, iron gates in front of an ornate palace made from light stone. "I don't think we're in the right place."

"Um," said Katty, pulling the Tube map out of her pocket, her brow furrowing in confusion and concentration. "Shit. This is definitely Buckingham Palace."

"This is fantastic," said Dean sarcastically, throwing a hand up and letting it fall back against his thigh.

So they got back on the Underground and this time they got it right, emerging to see a castle on a green lawn, enclosed by a stone wall.

"_That'_s the Tower of London," announced Katty proudly.

The trio stood on the hill overlooking the tower, all of them with their hands shoved in their pockets as they regarded the old castle.

"Cheery," said Dean simply as people bustled around them, chattering on their cell phones and trying to reign in small children. Sam sighed.

"Man, so many people have died in this place. Finding one spirit will be like finding a needle in a stack of needles. How do we know which spirit?"

"It's the one that kills people," said Katty helpfully, eyeing a cluster of pigeons. Dean gave a bark of laughter and Sam shot Katty a look.

"That narrows it down, Kat," he said sarcastically. "Thanks."

"Glad to help," she said with a distracted grin and then ran at full speed to the cluster of cooing and clucking pigeons, sending them into the air with much flapping and squawking. The Winchesters exchanged a look and both of them fought the urge to join her.

"Sorry," she said when she got back, her cheeks pink and her eyes glinting. "Couldn't resist."

They paid (after a short language barrier between Dean and the Indian man at the ticket box before Katty took over) and went into the courtyard.

Katty and Sam were looking around, soaking up the history of the place, while Dean eyed the roped off areas and the countless "do not enter" signs on various old wooden doors and stone corridors.

"Oh, this is gonna be a bitch," he said quietly to himself as he glanced around.

They attached themselves to a tour led by a man in a weird uniform called a 'beef eater'. Katty and Sam were listening rapturously as Dean eyed up the various women in the building- they were currently in an old chapel.

And then the beefeater said something that caught his attention.

"There is a legend," said the old man, raising his eyebrows and looking imperiously around the room and all the faces, "regarding the ravens of the tower. According to the history, should the ravens ever leave, the tower will fall…" the man paused and Sam and Katty exchanged a glance, "along with the kingdom."

Dean sat up a little straighter, his brow furrowing. He leaned across Katty and said to Sam, "Sure as hell sounds like a motive to me."

"Did your dad say who'd been killed?" whispered Katty. Dean exchanged a look with Sam.

"Yeah, he did," said Sam, his voice grim. "People who handle the ravens."

Dean cocked his head. "Sounds like someone wants to say goodbye to jolly old England."

Katty raised her eyebrows. "Not on my watch."

The trio did the 'tourist' thing that day and simply followed the tour, listening attentively, making conversation with various employees, and writing down the names of anyone they heard of that died. Dean found a very pretty, curvy blonde woman and began talking to her, while Sam conversed intently with their tour guide and Katty charmed some information out of an attractive twenty-something Indian man.

"So who of these guys," asked Dean as they sat on the Tube on the way back to the hotel several hours later, "would want to bring down England so bad they'd hang on to do it? You know- stick around?"

"Most of them," said Katty, raising her eyebrows. "Most of these people were accused of being traitors and half of those charges that got them killed were _majorly_ trumped up. Any one of them would have a good reason to wanna bring down the government."

"That's helpful, Kat. Thanks."

"But," she continued, looking between them. "Kamir told me that some people, in the past two weeks, have said they've seen two girls dressed in old fashioned clothes. Like, sixteenth century old. One of them had black hair, the other blonde. Kamir said that they are the Boleyn sisters."

"Sisters?" asked Dean, brows furrowing. "I thought there was just one- didn't she start divorces, or something like that?"

Sam shook his head as they switched to the Jubilee line, weaving through the chattering crowd. "No," he said as they got on the next train and the doors closed. "There were two. Anne-"

"-and Mary," said Katty.

"Look at this," said Dean, reaching behind him. The shelves behind the seats were littered with the newspapers that passengers would read between stops. Dean pulled out a section that was captioned **with ANOTHER RAVEN HANDLER MURDERED**, along with a picture of the Tower.

"You'd think they'd have closed it," said Sam, his brow furrowing. Katty shook her head, leaning around the taller brother to look at the paper.

"They can't; it's too much of a tourist attraction. They make a lot of money off of all the people that've died at the tower."

"Yeah, why stop now?" said Dean sarcastically. "Listen to this- not all of the murders have been at the Tower. The first few were, but then some of the handlers were killed in their homes."

"So if it's a spirit, it's not tied to the Tower."

"Maybe they're tied to an… idea," said Katty slowly. "The idea of bringing down England."

"That's ridiculous," said Dean flatly, and she made a face at him. "Listen, we don't know enough about this yet. We need to go back tomorrow and find out everything we can."

000

"Alright, you guys," said Dean that evening when the three were in a pub. He hefted a glass of ale, looking at the other two from underneath furrowed brows. "Let's get something straight. I'm no chicken."

Sam and Katty raised their eyebrows, Sam's arms crossed on the table and Katty leaning back in her chair. Dean made an exasperated movement with his head. "And you two need to stop with this sayin' stuff and doin' stuff at the same time thing. It's starting to get really freaking weird, okay?"

Their eyebrows rose higher.

In unison.

Dean pointed, eyes widening. "That's exactly what I'm talking about!"

Katty started laughing and Sam shook his head, smiling at his brother's antics with all the disdain of a little brother. "I think you were talking about not being a chicken?" he asked through a smile.

"Well, yeah, goes without saying."

Katty smirked and he pointed a finger at her. "Shut it." He looked back at Sam. "Man, we've gotten into some time spots, but this is something else. The place has got ropes and signs and it's freaking crawling with those beef eaters and we don't know enough about the legal system over here to say we're part of it." He shrugged, eyes flickering between the two of them. "What the hell do we do?"

"We'll think of something," said Sam, mimicking Dean's shrug. "We always do."

"We should go back tomorrow," said Katty, and stuck a fry in her mouth. "And make friends with the guards and the people who work there."

"What, so one of them will let us in?"

"Worth a shot."

Dean grinned triumphantly. "I saw some blonde chick there today." He winked at Katty. "I got this."

Sam and Katty exchanged a glance. "Why don't I feel reassured?" asked Sam, looking back to Dean. Dean drained the rest of his beer and sighed loudly, eyeing a girl at the smoky bar before looking back at Sam.

" 'Cause you have no faith, little brother."

Katty raised her eyebrows and said nothing.

000

Dean may have been cocky, but his cockiness was, unfortunately, justified.

He got the date. And Katty and Sam were left, rolling their eyes, as he sauntered, smirking and bowlegged, out of the hotel room late the next afternoon.

As the door slammed shut, the other two looked at each other with a slightly awkward silence growing between them.

"You wanna do something?" asked Katty, looking up at the much taller Sam, hoping to alleviate the awkwardness growing between them. He laughed and met her eyes.

"Like what?"

She gestured to the open windows and grinned.

"We're in London, baby. What _not_ would be a shorter list."

He grinned. "Good point."

He grabbed his wallet and held the door open for her. "Let's go."

It was funny, thought Katty, as she stood next to Sam in the Tube at rush hour, how different and yet how similar the brothers were. They finished each other's sentences, they clearly had a similar thought process, but Sam was a little quieter, more reserved, while Dean was extremely 'in your face' and could (and would) make a joke out of anything. They served as good foils to each other- it was beginning to become more and more clear to her why exactly they needed each other the way they did.

She had no illusions about her relationship with the brothers; she knew when she left that they'd continue on without her the same way they'd been before they knew her. All they needed was each other; she was just a distraction.

But she was starting to think that she needed them.

The train stopped and the doors opened with a mechanical 'whoosh' and a new tidal wave of people swept onto the train, briefcases and bags and body parts all banging against each other.

"Sorry," Sam mumbled, giving the various Londoners apologetic smiles. One girl, a short Asian with curly hair and green eyes, smiled back at him. Katty smirked, feeling very proud that her companions were such hunks.

As the train grew ever more impossibly crowded, Sam had little choice but to move forward so that he was pressed against Katty's back. A fairly acceptable intimacy, considering they'd been sharing a bed for the past week.

"Sorry," he said as his chest pressed against her back, grabbing the yellow pole above their heads as the train lurched into motion. To be honest, there were so many people pressed against her at that moment, many of them very attractive, that she wasn't excessively worried about the Winchester at her back.

"You're good," she told him.

They got off a few minutes later and Katty led the way through the bustling, chattering crowds to Picadilly Circus. Sam was looking around everywhere, his face awe-filled in the bluish evening light. Katty watched him with a grin.

"You know," she said as they leaned against a gate. Sam was still gazing around, staring at the enormous, changing signs and the red buses and the impossible mix of people. "It's really nice to meet someone who freaks out as much as I do over this city."

He looked down at her, grinning widely, the wind blowing his hair about his face, and gave a delighted laugh. "How can anyone not freak out about this place? It's fantastic!"

She laughed and grabbed his big hand with her smaller one, noting the way his fingers curved instinctively around hers. "C'mon," she said, leading him through the crowds. "I have more to show you."

They spent an hour in the National Museum and Sam told her stories about ancient lore that tied into the different rooms they were in.

"See that?" he said eagerly, leaning down to be more at her level (she was very short and he, quite tall) and pointing at an ancient Grecian jar with a painting of some kind of sea monster on it. Katty nodded and he turned to look at her, eyes wide with glee that someone was actually interested in his stories. John normally would nod and grunt, Dean would tell him, unsympathetically, to shut up, and even Jessica had only been able to feign interest for so long.

"That's the _kraken_," he said, his voice low and enthusiastic. Katty's jaw dropped and she stared back at the jar.

"Dude. That's real?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Hasn't been seen for a couple of centuries though. Most hunters think it's hibernating."

"Did you guys hunt the freaking _Kraken_?"

"Not us personally, but yeah, people have tried to kill it before."

"I'm guessing that didn't go too well."

"Nah, not really."

They had gone through a few more rooms and were looking at an ancient sword with an ornate bronze hilt behind its reflective plane of glass when Katty asked suddenly, still staring at the sword, "What about the Loch Ness monster?"

He grinned and raised his eyebrows, shoving his hands into his pockets. "You'll have to ask my dad about that one."

As they weaved throughout the maze of a museum, he told her stories about ancient Mesopotamian and Babylonian gods and she told him the history of Constantinople and Byzantium, of the Ottomans and the Romans and the Brits; the history of the Church.

When they emerged, several hours later, they were grinning; both of them were reveling in the company of someone just as intelligent and curious as they were.

"Where next?" asked Sam as they walked down a tree-lines road, past apartments that cost millions. Katty shrugged and then her eyes widened as she caught sight of a sign.

"We could go see Phantom of the Opera," she suggested nonchalantly, pointing. "Last minute tickets for fifteen pounds. Freaking awesome deal."

Sam came to a stop and whirled around in front of her, his eyes wide and his face split into a grin, the ends of his soft brown hair falling into his eyes. "Are serious?" he asked, his voice thick with excitement. Katty couldn't help but laugh; he was absolutely adorable. "I've never seen a play before!'

They bought the tickets and were sitting at the edge of the gilded balcony half an hour later. Sam was still grinning like a lunatic and flipping through his program and Katty, who wasn't far behind him in terms of excitement, was feeling very proud of herself. There was just something about seeing Sam happy that did a soul good.

The lights dimmed and Sam grabbed her arm, staring at the red curtains draped across the ornate stage, a wide and slightly psychotic grin spreading over his face. Katty just looked at him before shaking her head, suppressing a smile and turning back to the stage.

She, who had seen this play twice (once before in this exact same theatre) watched Sam as much as she watched the action and the singing on the stage below. For the first few scenes he had that same loopy smile on his face, but it slowly transformed into a look of deep intensity. He watched with his brow furrowed and his shoulders tense, leaning forward and watching, clearly enraptured.

Katty shook her head, cheeks hurting from grinning so much, stomach welling with happiness.

This was real. He was real. It was all real.

"_Did I not instruct_," a man's voice boomed around the theatre, "_that box five was to be kept empty?"_

Sam jumped what had to be a foot, causing some of the other audience members in the immediate vicinity to laugh quietly. Katty looked around, startled, and she and Sam exchanged a wide-eyed look before hurriedly turning away to stifle their laughter.

The ending came, inevitably, as it always has and always will, and Katty had a small and sad smile on her face as she listened to the familiar soaring music.

The curtain came swooping closed and the applause and screaming started. Sam turned to his blonde companion, his law dropped and his eyes wide.

"That was it?" he said, his voice incredulous. "That's how it ends?"

He looked back to the golden gilded stage, where the actors were arranging to take their bows.

"I know," said Katty over the roar of the audience. "I wasn't happy about it either."

They were still discussing vigorously it as they walked home through the streets at twilight.

"The music was amazing," said Sam, talking quickly and loudly as though he had so much to say he didn't know if he'd be able to get it all out. "And the story… _man_."

"I know. Believe me."

Without warning, he grabbed her in a tight hug in the middle of the street. A few people walked around them, chattering on their cell phones and on each other. "Thank you. God, Kat, thank you. This is the best night I've had…" he laughed, shaking his head, "…in a long time."

"Well, I'm glad," she said, laughing and hugging him back awkwardly. He kept grinning and was walking with a new bounce in his step, chattering away about the play and the city, Katty listening and replying, marveling at how normal it felt just to be with him.

They weren't talking about anything supernatural or dangerous, they were just talking like they were normal people, just two friends taking a vacation in an ancient and beautiful city.

"Thank you. Again," said Sam earnestly as he dug out the key to their room. He pushed open the door and they heard a shrieking giggle and the rustling of sheets, followed by a low and distinctly male chuckle.

"God, Dean!" shouted Sam as the girl stopped giggling and started screaming, rolling to the edge of the bed, her eyes wide and shocked, clutching the sheets to her chest. Dean scrambled hastily to his feet without thinking.

"Oh, God!" shouted Katty, reflexively throwing her arms over her face and squeezing her eyes shut. Sam gave the completely naked Dean a withering look and Dean looked down.

"Oh, _shit_," he said fervently, scrambling for the sheets. Unfortunately, his companion already had the sheets wrapped around her body and all Dean could use to cover himself was a pillow.

He gave a weak grin.

The girl grabbed her clothes and ran out, still wrapped in Dean's sheets. The door slammed shut and Sam glared at Dean in a way that would have made a lesser man shy away. Dean just grinned and made a gesture to the bed with one hand, the other still clutching the pillow.

"Sorry bout that."

"Can I look?" asked Katty, her head still turned away. A wide and rakish grin spread over his face.

"Whenever you're ready, kid."

She somehow managed to give him a withering look without opening her eyes and he chuckled.

"Stay classy, Dean."

"Please tell me that that wasn't our girl," said Sam, gesturing to the door, raising his eyebrows warningly.

"Oh, nah," said Dean, still grinning his charming grin. "Met her on the way home."

"You're unbelievable," said Katty flatly. It was amazing how she could look so disdainful with her eyes squeezed tightly shut.

"You can open your eyes, kid," said the still naked Dean with a wink at Sam. Sam glowered, mouth open slightly in disbelief.

"I'm not looking till you're not naked."

Dean shrugged and cocked his head. "Shame."

"Put some clothes on," snapped Sam.

000

_Katty Sherman's Diary_

_Tuesday, June 7__th__, 2010_

_10:14pm_

_I just saw Dean Winchester naked._

_My life is complete._

_000_

Sam was in the shower while Dean lay in bed, watching TV and cackling at Young Frankenstein. Katty was sitting cross-legged on she and Sam's bed, typing rapidly on her computer, blue-ish light illuminating her face and reflecting off her glasses. She suddenly looked years younger.

Dean glanced at her, the smile freezing on his face, a foreign emotion originating somewhere in his throat.

For the first time since prom, he was feeling _awkward_.

"Kid, uh-"

She looked up at him with a somewhat dopey expression on her face and he gave her his most charming smile. "Sorry." He shrugged. "Bout earlier. Didn't exactly mean for you to see that."

"I'll live, I promise," she said wryly, lips twisting into a smirk, eyebrows quirking above the glasses.

"Yeah, but-" he smirked too with a quick tilt of his head and a half-shrug, desperately wanting this horrible _awkwardness_ to go away, "now that you've had a glimpse, you're gonna want the whole show."

"_Seventeen_!" came a muffled yell from behind the bathroom door. Dean and Katty stared at the door in alarm.

"I get the feeling you two have discussed this before."

Dean grinned more widely and said nothing. Katty rolled her eyes, lips twitching, and went back to her computer.

Sam emerged full clothed but still damp and flopped on top of the white, fluffy bed next to Katty.

"E-mailing friends?" he asked her, propping his head up in his hand, his elbow digging into the pillow, and looking at her. Dean glanced at her in time to see her look to Sam and nod, her hands hovering over the silver keyboard.

"What are you telling them?" asked Dean, his voice serious. Good. Hunting and the rules that went with it; no awkwardness there.

She glanced at him.

"About this?" she asked and he nodded. "I've been telling people it's a road trip." A mischievous grin spread over her face. "Educational, you know."

"Not exactly a lie."

"Yep." She gave a half shrug and hesitated for a moment. "Apart from my parents, the only people who know the truth are Holly and Brooklynne, the two girls who were with me that night in the auditorium."

Dean inhaled slowly, brows furrowing to form a V on his face, and looked to Sam, whose expression mirrored his own.

"Listen, kid," he said, swinging himself around so his legs were hanging off of the edge of the bed and he was facing her, hands clasped in between his knees. She met his gaze with wide eyes; she seemed to know what was coming. "We need to talk about 'bout… 'bout what this job means."

"I know," she said quickly, angling her body towards him. He just looked at her. "I _know_ what it means, Dean. You can look at me like that all you want, but I know what you're talking about. I know it's dangerous, I know it's stupid to get them involved, but they deserve some answers, 'cause they were there too. And…" she took a breath and her body tensed up a little bit. "And I know you guys sort of feel like I'm just with you on vacation, or something." She looked to Sam, her eyes earnest. "But that's not it at all. I know how dangerous it gets-" she pointed to the scars on her chest with a small smile, "and I know it's hard to have friends and live this way. But after- after I'm done with school- I'll stay with you two forever, if you'll have me."

000

Dean lay awake, staring at the ceiling, long after the soft breathing of the other two had filled the room. He was thinking about what Katty had said and what it might mean for he and his brother.

John had pounded it in his mind, again and again: there could be no connections with this job, not even with other hunters; the only thing you could depend on was family. Dean, before, had seen no reason to question this.

But a part of him didn't want to think about this kid leaving. It had always been three- he and Sam and Dad. And then Sam left, the Dad, then for about six months it was just him and Sammy, and that had been nice. He and Sam, they fit together. And they were still getting used to the girl, to the smell of flowers mixed with leather and bacon burgers and gunpowder.

But she fit, too. She wasn't girly and didn't scare easy- bonuses for this life. She wore shorts and t-shirts and a pony-tail. She had Dean's humor and Sam's tact and John's insight.

And- Dean hated to admit it to himself, _god_, he hated it- he liked her. Not just wanted to screw her, but _liked_ her, which, for him, was an extreme rarity. He thought she was smart, pretty, and had potential. She'd make a damn good hunter one day.

No, what bothered him was that he'd always cared about two people- just two- and then this girl with her eyes inserted herself into his world.

Now he didn't know what to think.

000

"I really shouldn't be doing this," said the Londoner named Emma with a wide smile the next night as she led the Winchesters plus one into the Tower. They boys had hidden their guns and even machetes under bulky coats- they still didn't know what this thing was and they weren't taking chances- and Dean, against his better judgment, gave Katty a silver knife and a gun.

"Pretty universal," he'd said, and she'd given him a glinting grin that slightly worried him and maybe turned him on a little bit as she slid the gun into the waistband of her pants, giving him a glimpse of a pale, slightly chubby stomach, the band of her green underwear, and jutting hipbones.

He's smirked and she'd rolled her eyes, extremely non-perturbed (but maybe a little flattered) that he'd been staring.

Now they looked like civilians, the boys with their jackets and Katty with her loose shirt buttoned over the gun.

There was another thing she was good for, apart from comic relief, Dean was beginning to realize as Emma led them around the closed-off sections of the Tower.

People just _liked_ her.

Dean could get a girl's number in under two minutes (he'd had John time it once) and Sam could get anyone to trust him by giving them that smile and those puppy-dog eyes, but Katty would open up her blue eyes and give her wide grin and they would be gone. Male, female, it didn't matter. She could charm the bark off of a tree, and that's what she was doing now, with Dean's date.

Dean was jealous.

"This is so cool!" gushed Katty to Emma, all wide eyes and (fake) innocent smiles as Emma led them into a second roped-off, forbidden tower. "How long have you worked here?"

"About three years, now," replied Emma, smiling at the younger girl's infectious good humor. Katty's smile widened and there was a glint of something shark like in her eyes. Emma had her back turned, now unlocking a wooden door that looked like it had been around since the reign of Henry the Eight, and didn't notice, but the Winchesters did.

"Have you ever seen any ghosts?" asked Katty, her tone conspiratorial and her eyes glinting.

"Ooh, that would be _cool_," said Dean, somewhat giddily for him, and only Sam caught the sarcasm and edge in his voice.

"Yeah, I have, actually," said Emma, pausing with the door barely cracked. They were in a stone corridor at the top of a tightly spiraling staircase, and it was cramped; Sam had to stoop over and Dean's head was brushing the ceiling above them. "Just a few days ago. It looked like a- a woman…"

"Do you know who?" asked Sam, his voice a little bit urgent. Emma turned to give him an odd look and he shrugged as Dean stared at him.

"I mean, a lot of people have died here," he said nonchalantly. "Was she familiar?"

"She was, actually," said Emma thoughtfully, finally opening the rickety door to reveal a small, circular stone room with a window and a woman standing in front of it, bathed in moonlight.

"Boys, meet Anne Boleyn."

Emma stood by the dark and beautiful spirit while the boys and Katty stared.

"Holy shit," said Dean, his tone surprised. The two women, apart from differences in coloration, looked exactly alike.

"You're dead too?" asked Sam in tactless shock to the blonde woman they'd thought was named Emma. Anne gave a thrilling and haunting laugh.

"No," she said, her accented voice filling the night air. Dean and Sam both looked slightly mesmerized. "We have been awakened."

Katty raised her eyebrows, looking unimpressed.

The door behind them slammed shut.

They were trapped.

"Oh, this is just great," said Dean, throwing his hands up. The sisters exchanged dark, triumphant looks.

"What do you mean, _awakened_?" asked Sam with a panicked curiosity in his voice that escaped the notice of the two dead women.

"I died for my country-" said Anne Boleyn, drawing herself up with all the airs of a woman about to go on a self-righteous spiel. Katty, however, was well versed in the events surrounded Anne's death, and was having none of it.

"You died," she snapped in an annoyed, no-nonsense sort of voice, "because you were a power hungry bitch who married some fat bastard just so you could have money and power. Do you have any idea the repercussions that's had? How many lives have been ruined, how many churches have been screwed up because you weren't content-"

"Whoa, Kat," interrupted Dean, staring at the fuming girl as though he'd never seen anything quite like her. "Tell us how ya really feel next time."

Anne gave a smirk and an easy shrug. "It's true, I suppose."

Dean and Sam both turned to the dead woman, their eyebrows raised. Katty still looked like she could breathe fire; she obviously took the second split of the Church very seriously.

Then the smile melted off of the older woman's beautiful face and Katty was flung against the wall.

"Whoa," shouted Dean. Sam held his hands up quickly, raising his eyebrows.

"That's not necessary," he said, quickly and calmly. Katty groaned and swore.

Mary Boleyn cocked her head. "It is, actually."

Anne stepped forward. "He said the next one had to be a girl. An American girl- it's the only way to bring the kingdom down." Her eyes were gleaming excitedly. "Start a war- bring down the kingdom."

Katty rolled her eyes, still pinned to the wall.

"He? Who's he?" Dean half shouted, his brow furrowed and his voice frustrated. Anne and Mary exchanged a glance before looking back to the brothers.

"The man," said Anne, her voice low and her eyes very bright.

"The man who brought us back," whispered Mary.

"He said the death of an American, a pretty, young American-" Anne shot a look of poisoned honey to Katty, still pinned to the wall, who made a face back at her like a deranged rabbit, "-would spark a chain of events that would lead to the fall of the British Empire."

"The ravens didn't matter, not really. It was always about the girl," said Mary.

"I'm flattered, really," said Katty, her voice sarcastic. But the Winchesters weren't listening; as the sisters had been speaking, they'd been moving forward, too, the ice in their eyes being slowly replaced by something else. The Winchesters were dumbfounded- Katty, however, was a female and knew what the sisters were playing at.

"What-" said Sam, his voice alarmed. The brothers moved back as the sisters advanced until the Winchesters' backs were pressed against the cold stone wall of the tower on either side of the still immobile and now very annoyed Katty.

"You're brothers," said Mary, full lips twisting into a smirk as she approached Sam.

"We're sisters," said Anne. Dean stared at the cleavage heaving out of her corset.

"This is a once in a lifetime opportunity."

"Sorry," said Dean, smirking. "I don't go for dead girls-"

His words were swallowed by Anne's lips as each sister kissed their respective brother. Katty looked in between them and huffed, torn between anger and amusement.

"You have got to be kidding me."

She was ignored and stared at the sets of two, listening to the awkward smacking sounds (heavy make-out scenes that one was not apart of were much more awkward without soaring background music). Sam's jaw ground as he kissed Mary, his eyes closed and his brow furrowed, and Katty knew he was thinking of Jess. Dean had a hand on Anne's face, kissing her fiercely.

Katty realized she could move; the sisters were sufficiently distracted.

She drew a breath, taking the advice of one extremely wise Jack Shepard and counting to five, grabbed her gun, and slammed it against Anne's head, dragging her away from Dean with a noise like a plunger being pulled out of a toilet. Dean stared after her, his lips puckered and his eyes ('_Aw, bless him'_, Katty couldn't help but think) confused. Mary tore herself away from Sam, whirling around and staring at Katty with horror in her gaze. Sam and Dean stared at Katty, too.

"What the hell are you doing?" Dean snapped at her.

"You two seemed kind of distracted, so I made an executive decision-"

He scoffed, eyes darting around the room furtively. "No, we weren't. It was part of the…. the plan."

Everyone from Sam to Mary gave him a look.

"I had it under control, okay?" he hissed to his brother.

"Enough," said Katty, now thoroughly done with this ridiculous situation and more than a little annoyed at both of the brothers. "Who brought you back?" she asked Anne, a steady hand holding the gun to the former queen's head. Anne's eyes darted about as she tried to hide her fear.

"A man," she said. "A gardener- he- he works here."

"He got a name?"

Mary was staring at her sister in horror. "Anne-'

Anne gave Mary a warning look and Mary fell silent. The brothers looked in between the two sisters.

"Why did he bring you back?" asked Dean, his voice flat, all business. Sam was the only one who knew how embarrassed his brother was.

"For revenge," said Mary, speaking suddenly. "He told us to kill the raven handlers- and then to kill an American. A girl, he said. A pretty girl."

"Again, I'm flattered," said Katty, with a very not-pretty look on her face, the gun still to Anne's head. Her eyes went to the Winchesters. "We need to leave. We need to find this guy."

"Name?" Dean half-barked at Mary.

"We-we don't know."

"What do we do with them?" asked Sam calmly. The question was aimed at Dean but Katty answered, her voice and face hard.

"Kill them."

Mary whimpered and the brothers stared.

"They were brought back," said Katty, the gun aimed at Anne but her eyes on Dean. "They belong to the world of five hundred years ago; they're not supposed to be here and you know that."

Dean was nodding. Sam stared at him incredulously. "You _can't_ be considering this, Dean."

"What else do we do, Sammy?" asked Dean, his voice gruff as his green eyes flashed to Sam's. Sam scoffed, his eyes wide and his mouth open.

"They're _humans_, Dean."

"They're _dead_, Sam."

"Not anymore, we're not," said Anne, fear sparking in her dark eyes, her face half in darkness, half bathed in moonlight.

Dean turned an intense look on her, leveling his silver gun at Mary's chest.

The sisters were crying quietly and Sam looked like there was a bad taste in his mouth.

"Give me the gun," he said suddenly, his eyes in shadow and his voice hard as he gestured at Katty. "Give me the gun, I'll do it."

Anne gave a quiet sob. There was silence for a moment and the Dean spoke. His voice was even lower than it had been before; a scrape across gravel.

"No," he said. The Boleyn sisters stopped sobbing and both Katty and Sam stared at Dean.

"What are you talking about-?" began Sam loudly.

"Let her do it."

"She's a kid, Dean-" Sam's voice was angry in a way it hadn't been before.

"She needs to see what it's like!" shouted Dean over his brother, the gun in his hands still pointed at Mary Boleyn. "She wants to stay with us, she needs to _be _with us and not just play a game, and that means she's gonna have to shot that gun every once in a damn while, Sammy!" He turned to Katty, face flat and eyes burning. "Pull the trigger, Kat, do it now-"

"Don't, Katty, give it to me-"

"Please, don't- please-"

"Shoot the gun, Katty!"

"Give it to me!"

"Just _shut up_!" shouted Katty, her face contorting. Then, to Anne, she said in a voice that only shook a little bit, "I'm sorry about this. But you'll be at peace.

Anne closed her eyes. Katty kept hers open and pulled the trigger, and Dean did the same as Sam stared on.

There was no blood. Katty and Dean both bent down to examine the bodies.

Katty's hands shook violently as she flicked the safety on her gun and shoved it back into her pants.

"They were still dead," said Sam, his voice slightly awe-struck. "No blood-"

"No pulse," said Katty. Dean looked over at her and she glanced down at him; he was still kneeling next to Mary's body and she had risen to her full height. "That's the reason I shot."

Dean rose to his feet and glanced back to the bodies.

They were both gone. He and Sam exchanged a wide-eyed glance.

"Whoa," said Katty.

000

They didn't sleep when they got back to the hotel, though it was now past one in the morning. Sam got on his laptop and Katty on hers and every now and then they would call out a piece of information and Dean would write it down and then take another chug of his coffee; they made four pots over the course of the night.

They found a man who worked as a gardener at the Tower- his name was Edward Fawkes. He was a direct descendant from Guy Fawkes, a Catholic who had tried to blow up parliament after people of his religion lost many of their rights. Catholics in England were still discriminated against.

"Motive enough for me," said Sam, his tired face lined in the blueish glow from his computer.

"There are a couple of Greek rituals that can bring people back to life," said Katty, her voice lower, more hoarse, from tiredness. "Well, not life, exactly, but- reanimate them, you know-"

"So we need to stop him from bringing anyone else back," said Dean, rubbing his eyes before writing this latest bit of information down.

"How?" asked Katty.

"Maybe we can kill him too," said Sam, his biting voice dripping with sarcasm. Katty rolled her eyes.

Dean nodded. "Good idea. Quick, easy-"

"I was kidding, Dean."

"I wasn't."

000

They found Edward the next morning, at his apartment in London's West Side- cockney area. You could hear the bells chiming from Whitechapel where they were.

Sam and Dean stood on either side of Katty after wringing the doorbell. They hadn't bothered with suits or fake IDs- as Dean had said, they didn't know enough about the system to try to say they were apart of it.

So now all they had was, as Katty put it, "their muscles and her raw charisma."

The man who answered the door had the look of a person meant for greatness who had let himself be led astray. He was very tall- two or three inches shorter than Sam, towering over Katty and looking down on Dean. He had a powerful frame but a slight potbelly, and piercing blue eyes with curly, gray spotted black hair.

He looked over all three of them in an unhurried sort of way, and then opened the door more.

"Come in," he said, his voice accented and gruff. Katty was about to melt; she loved accents and she just felt sorry for this man. She could see in every move he made that he detested this life he was forced to live, and she definitely empathized.

The Winchesters and their friend followed him in.

"Tea?" asked Edward Fawkes. The brothers exchanged a glance.

"No thanks," said Dean, with a tight smile.

"You got any coffee?" asked Katty, her voice nonchalant. Edward looked at her, something measuring in his gaze.

"You _are_ American."

"That's what you wanted, isn't it?" said Dean suddenly, his eyes burning into Fawkes'. That piercing, tired gaze turned to the eldest Winchester. Tea, and coffee, were forgotten.

"Not what _I_ wanted," said Fawkes, after a few moments of awkward silence in which the Winchesters made themselves look as threatening as possible and in which Katty just took it all in. There were bookshelves, behind Fawkes, filled with old, dusty manuals. On the table were candles- long and black, for summoning. And, on all the walls and windowsills, was salt.

This wasn't just about a five-hundred year old grudge.

The tingling started at the back of Katty's head.

Fawkes nodded at her. "What he wanted."

The Winchesters glanced at Katty, whose brow was now furrowed, and then back to Fawkes.

"He?"

"The man with the yellow eyes."

They all started and Fawkes looked to Katty again, his voice softer than it was before.

"He said not to worry," he told her, and Katty looked at him. "He said he wasn't ready for you yet." He looked at Sam now. "Not either of you."

Dean was looking between his brother and the teenager. "What the hell is going on?"

Fawkes was turning away from them, something defeated and resigned in the slope of his shoulders. "You don't need to worry about me, either," he said, his voice quiet. "I won't be bringing any one else back from the dead."

Dean was about to make a snappy and angry retort but Katty looked up at him, something very odd in her eyes.

"We need to leave," she said, her voice oddly shrill. "Now."

Dean and Sam didn't argue and they left Edward Fawkes standing at his kitchen counter.

000

Katty found the newspaper on the Tube, the very next day, and stared, her face draining and her eyes widening.

"Look at this," she said, shoving it at Sam.

There was a small article.

**DESCENDENT OF GUY FAWKES FOUND MURDERED IN HOME.**

"They found him two hours after we left," said Dean, looking to his brother.

Both of them looked at Katty, who just looked back, wide-eyed and obviously terrified.

John Winchester's warning echoed in Dean's mind as he looked at the blue-eyed teen.

**TBC...

* * *

**

"She's My Ride Home" by Blue October.

A/N: Whoo! London! This chapter was really fun to write, especially the part with Sam and Katty just walking around the city. Sam is freaking adorable. The next chapter is going to be... insane. You guys are gonna flip. I laughed my butt off while writing it, so I hope you enjoy ;D

Please review!

Love,

K.


	5. Booze, Bongs, Brits, and Badgers

**_Backseat Driver _by Katty Noir**

* * *

_Don't stop, make it pop_  
_ DJ, blow my speakers up_  
_ Tonight, I'mma fight_  
_ 'Til we see the sunlight_  
_ Tick tock on the clock_  
_ But the party don't stop, no_

**Chapter Four: Booze, Bongs, Brits, and Badgers**

"We need a break," announced Dean firmly, leaning against the bathroom doorframe, as the other two were packing up the few things they'd pulled out in the course of the three-day cross-Atlantic excursion. Sam and Katty just looked up at him, and he grinned widely, looking almost criminally proud of himself, before tossing something at Katty, who caught it easily and stared at it.

"A fake ID?" she said, looking from it to him. "How the hell did you get this for me?"

"I got ways," he said, his grin widening and his golden-green eyes glinting. "Congrats, kiddo. You're twenty-one." He clapped his hands and rubbed them together. "Let's go get _drunk_."

Katty immediately sat upright. "That sounds fantastic," she said earnestly, her eyes round and her jaw somewhat slack. Dean looked to Sam, his own expression very smug while Sam's was somewhat shocked but not entirely disagreeable.

"Fine with me."

000

For the Winchesters, 'getting ready' was nothing more than subtracting a layer from their shirt-second shirt-jacket-coat outfits and running their hands through their hair. Katty, however, took significantly more time, and Dean was indignant when she emerged from the bathroom in a very plain plaid shirt with a tank top underneath and some jeans.

"That's it?" he said, raising his eyebrows, giving her a trademark male up-down. "I was expecting- I dunno. Booty shorts, or at least something _good_. Not-" he gestured her. "Polly the female lumberjack."

Sam glared at him. Katty grinned, supremely unbothered. She was comfortable, and in her mind, that was what mattered.

"Expecting or hoping?"

"Pick one."

He did have to admit, though- she'd at least done something with her hair. It was straight, and looked thicker than normal, instead of the messy, frizzy golden mess that she normally sported- and had her eyelashes always been that long?

They wandered around London for a while, looking for a promising bar. Not a pub- Dean was adamant. He wanted loud music and slutty women and some American beer.

Katty was just excited to be able to drink. It wasn't something she was planning on making a habit out of, but, despite her abnormal situation and abilities, she was still a teenager, with all the wants and needs and curiosities of any girl her age, and she was with two very attractive young men. Part of her just wanted to let loose and get some stories to tell when she went back to school, and another part was hoping that something would happen between she and one of the brothers under the influence of alcohol.

Sam wanted some answers.

When Katty and Dean disappeared into a promising doorway with black lights and scantily clad people (both male and female) behind it, he waited outside, saying he wanted to get some air. Neither of his companions questioned him, and when they were inside, he pulled out his phone and dialed the familiar but silent number.

"Hey, uh, dad, it's Sam. Dean called a few weeks ago, about a yellow eyed demon- we, uh-" he ran a hand over his eyes- "ran into someone who knows about it yesterday, and he said some- some interesting things. Dad, does that thing have anything to do with me?" He sighed now, listening to the music and the loud beats floating out from behind him.

"Alright, Dad. See you soon. I guess."

He hung up and walked inside, determined to, if not have a good time for himself, at least make sure he kept Katty safe, and laugh his ass off at the predicaments Dean was sure to get himself into.

Dean and Katty were sitting together- Dean had a beer that wasn't American but smelled just as bad, and Katty had what looked to be a Jack and Coke. Dean was looking around, his eyes gleaming, looking for women, and Katty leaned against the bar, sipping out of her glass and gathering more than a few appreciative looks. Dean, absorbed in his own search, didn't notice, but Sam did.

He pushed his way through the bar, through the crowds of people, and gave the bartender, a large, burly bald man, a nod.

"A Guiness," he said, and the man slid him a bottle. Katty gave him a side-ways glance from underneath long, dark lashes and Sam's breath caught, his hand tightening around the cold, wet bottle.

"Might wanna be careful, there," she said, now grinning, her eyes still glinting at him and suddenly it didn't matter that she looked like a Halloween version of a female lumberjack, because, god, those _eyes_. "You could get drunk."

He gave a laugh, turning and mimicking her posture, his back against the bar, one hand clutching at his drink.

"Nah," he said. "I don't get drunk."

000

"No, this one."

"_Not a good song. _I want this one."

"Well- no one _cares_, Sam."

"Screw you! I wanna do kar'oke, an' I wanna do _this song_."

Katty and Sam were not drunk yet, but they were very close. They had left the first bar- found Dean and insisted they find somewhere with karaoke; Sam's idea. Dean, surprisingly, was the most sober of the trio, and thought that this was going to end hilariously and was willing to go along with it. He was now leaning against another bar with another beer, chatting to another girl as he occasionally glanced over at the much more tipsy Katty and his brother.

He shook his head, just slightly. Sam had always been a lightweight, but Katty had some curves. She wasn't fat, not by a long shot, but she wasn't skinny either; Dean thought she'd be able to hold her liquor.

The British man in control of the karaoke was watching Katty and Sam argue over Journey and Heart with a look on his face somewhere between exasperation and deep amusement.

"Sammy- s'not a good bar song- 's all sad and-"

"-makes it a _perfect_ bar song!"

"You know," interrupted the British man finally, his lips twitching slightly, and the duo looked at him, the man very tall and the girl quite short, both of them with open mouths and wide but slightly unfocused eyes, "you can do both songs."

They looked at each other, and shrugged. "Okay."

They clambered up onto the platform and each grabbed a microphone, swaying only a little bit.

Dean grinned in anticipation of the hilarity that was sure to follow, and then the grin melted into a horrified groan as the opening notes began to play.

"_I hear the ticking of the clock- the room's pitch dark_-"

"Oh, you have got to be kidding me," said Dean flatly, barely moving his mouth, closing his eyes. The girl next to him moved away, feeling as though maybe she'd bitten off more than she could chew with this one.

It wasn't that either of them had bad voices; Katty's was actually quite good, and Sam had done several plays in the course of high-school.

But-

_This song_?

This sappy, romantic, _yearning_, essence-of-the-eighties song? Dean was unbelievably ashamed of his brother.

"Till now-" belted Sam into the microphone, his eyes closed and his mouth wide, obviously pouring his whole heart into this song.

"-I always got by on my own-"

Katty and Sam looked at each other, gazes full of unspoken passion and repressed longing and every other clichéd romance novel saying, and it looked to Dean like some badly-done scene out of some teen movie.

"-I never really cared until I met you-"

He thought it couldn't get worse.

He was wrong.

Once _Alone_ was finished, a second, very, _very_ familiar opening riff began to play.

Dean's eyes widened in horror, and Sam winked at him from behind the microphone while Katty was completely absorbed in the music, grinning widely and happily.

_He wouldn't._

"Just a small town girl- living in a lonely world!"

He did.

"Oh, c'mon, Sammy, that's just cruel."

"Took a midnight train going anywhere…"

Dean turned to the bar.

"What's the strongest you have?" he asked gruffly, trying desperately to block out the guitar and Sam and Katty's obnoxiously optimistic song behind him.

The bartender raised his eyebrows and said, gruffly, "Got one that'll knock ya off yer feet. An' I mean that… quite literally. Called 'Legless but smiling'."

Dean slapped his hand down on the bar. "I'll take it."

By the time the end of the song came around, the entire bar was on its feet, singing loudly and waving their arms, and Dean was with them, now feeling tipsier and much happier than he'd been in forever. He was grinning so widely he felt like his face might split in two; he thought that wasn't normal, smiling so much, but found he didn't really care.

He'd taken about three sips.

"Don't stop-belieeeeeving!"

"Hold on to that _feelaaaaan_'!"

When the song finished and Katty and Sam sauntered over to the eldest Winchester, they were looking extremely proud of themselves. Dean was growing happier by the second, still grinning widely.

"You guys have got to try this stuff," he said, his voice high-pitched from happiness.

000

"The point," said Sam, his voice firm and his eyes unfocused, his elbows on the table and supporting his weight, "is. Point is."

"Point is," said Dean, looking up at the other two from where his head was lying on his folded arms on the worn table in the slowly emptying bar, "point is, _no _point."

Katty nodded wisely. "Point," she said, pointing and each of the brothers, squinting slowly, "Point is that- that-"

"No _point_," whined Dean, and buried his face in his elbows and began to sob. Sam rubbed his back, an expression of deep sympathy on his face. Katty looked as though she was thinking deeply.

All three were completely and totally wasted, and the changes of personality that alcohol instigated were becoming more and more prominent. Sam was more forceful; Katty was very pensive; Dean just cried a lot. The opposite, generally, of their sober personalities. It was making for some interesting conversation.

Across the bar, one of the bartender's old friends was looking at the trio before turning back to the bartender, an eyebrow raised.

" 'Legless but smiling' ," said the bartender by way of explanation. The other man nodded, understanding dawning.

"Ah."

"The point," said Katty suddenly, sitting up, eyes widening, "is _badgers_."

Dean stopped sobbing and looked up at her. Sam looked thoughtful. Katty nodded decisively.

"Smart animals. Point is- we should be more- more _badger_-"

"-less human," said Sam, realization dawning. This made perfect sense to him. Dean was looking between them.

"Wh' bout dolphins?" he asked. "They're smart- human smart."

"Badgers _dig_," said Katty, and that was the end of that.

000

On the Tube back to the hotel, at three in the morning, all three of them had complete psychological breakdowns brought on by a lifetime of stress and repressed emotions(in the brothers' case), very strong alcohol, and a well-timed sad song playing on the same platform that the inebriated trio were waiting on.

Dean collapsed, sobbing, onto his brother, with his arms around him, while Sam stroked the top of Dean's head, his own lips quivering. Katty was reduced to trying to make tearful conversation with a poster of Bruno.

"We-we hunt monsters!" blubbered Dean, tightening his hold on Sam, who just nodded sympathetically. "_Why_- do we _do_ _that_-"

"Because no one else can," said Sam solemnly. A few seats down were some shifty looking teenagers, who were looking at the trio oddly and seemed to be debating something. Katty was nodding seriously at something Bruno had apparently said, her eyes glistening and her face pale.

" 's not my fault he got married- I mean-" her lip began to tremble, "-I don't really- care-" she burst into tears.

Sam pulled her to him. "You let it out," he said, putting his chin over the top of her head.

Katty and Dean both gave heart-wrenching wails.

Sam's eyes were glistening too.

"I want a puppy," he said, his voice shaking.

Katty began to howl. "I accidentally shoved a hamster down a vacuum pipe once!"

Dean stared at her. "How- can you live with yourself?"

She gave a great sniff. "I don't…know."

"I shot Dad in the leg, by accident." Water filled Dean's green-gold eyes. "I shot- my own father!"

"I stabbed myself with a coathanger!"

"My girlfriend- she- she died!"

"I feel demons! _Demons_! Like I wasn't weird 'nough already!"

"I'm wanted for murder!"

"I stubbed my toe!"

The teenagers were now approaching them, the one in the front holding something behind his back. Dean saw this and immediately jumped to his feet, away from his brother, swaying drunkenly and throwing his arms out, all the anger of a raging and indignant drunk on his face.

"Whadda you want?" he snarled, still swaying. "Y' a demon?"

The boy looked at him as though he were crazy. "No-"

"Don't lie t' me, boy!" bellowed Dean. Sam stared at him in awe.

"You sounded just like Dad did that time he caught you in women's underwear."

Everyone ignored this statement, although Katty's eyes went to Dean's butt, and she gave a giggle.

The teenagers exchanged a glance.

"We thought you might want some," he said, and then shrugged. "Sure looks like you could use it more than us."

He brought his hand out from behind his back, and held in it was the largest bong any of them had ever seen.

000

Katty woke up against something hard, cold, and curved, and she gave a loud, pained groan.

She was in a bathtub. It felt like one of her legs was dangling out, and there was a crick in her neck that would have brought down a dragon or a largish giraffe.

Not to mention all the normal effects of a hangover- the stories had been right. It was horrible.

She tried to think and, finding that that was far outside her functioning capabilities at the moment, instead elected to find her boys. The first order of business- standing upright.

She didn't remember anything after getting on the train, although she did seem to recall a Bruno poster.

She rose groggily to her feet, her whole body aching. A glance out the window told her it was just beginning to get light. She made sure she was still fully clothed, and was surprised to find that she was wearing Dean's shirt and one of Sam's shoes. She blinked, too disoriented to really care, and then she stumbled out of the bathroom, before immediately tripping over something.

Sam grunted. He had Katty's plaid shirt balled up under his head, using it as a pillow. Katty glanced up, and her jaw dropped infinitesimally.

On Dean's bed was a pillow fort. Not just any fort, however- this thing was majestic, rising almost to the ceiling. It also appeared, by the one shoed, one socked pair of feet sticking out over the edge of the bed, that Dean was still inside the fort.

Katty decided that now was not the time to ask, and instead knelt next to Sam and began poking him.

"Sam," she said. "Sam. Sammy. Sam Sammy Saaaaaam."

He opened an eye and she, still a little bit drunk and very out of it, gestured to the bed.

"Sleep," she said simply, and like some kind of much more attractive Frankenstein, he followed her. She collapsed, pulling the covers up around her shoulders, and he slid in next to her. Instead of sleeping on opposite sides, as they normally did, he slid right next to her and she turned, nestling up against him and he threw an arm around her waist.

Dean gave an almighty snore from the pillow fort that sent one of the pillows to the ground.

000

Sam awoke to a pounding headache and the feeling that there was a small and angry animal in his mouth. Despite this, though, he was also warm, and comfortable, and it felt like there was someone next to him. He really, really hoped it wasn't Dean; it had happened once, after a night similar to this, and it had been embarrassing and awkward for both of them. John hadn't made it any easier either, laughing at both of them and teasing them mercilessly about it.

"Got some repressed feelin's there, huh, boys?" he'd asked, grinning a glinting grin.

Sam didn't like to think about it.

With a great effort, he cracked open an eye and saw Katty next to him, still sound asleep, her head on his chest. She was swimming in Dean's shirt.

Sam's lips felt swollen and he looked down at Katty again, slightly horrified. Then again, she was a definite improvement from his brother, not that that was saying much. An angry, pregnant gorilla would be more pleasant to wake up with than Dean.

"Good morning," came Dean's voice, Dean's sleepy, gravelly voice. Sam sat up slowly, depositing Katty on the pillow.

He saw the remains of the fort on the other bed and then noticed his brother, who was holding a cup of coffee and wearing the lacy white shirt Katty had had on under the plaid last night. Sam blinked, pressed the rewind button in his mind, and then looked back at his brother. The shirt was still there. It didn't cover his whole stomach and was stretched so tightly across his chest that there were no wrinkles in the fabric.

"…I am so confused," said Sam slowly.

"Thanks for bringing me back and putting me in bed," said Dean, gesturing at the bed, ignoring the obvious question of the shirt. "The pillow fort you built around me is also appreciated."

Sam again looked over at the fort before looking back at his brother, now sitting at the edge of the bed. _That shirt. _"That was probably Katty's idea."

"It wasn't," said Dean, taking a sip of the coffee. "It was yours. I could hear you two talking."

"…what the hell _happened_ last night?"

"Well," said Dean, making a loose gesture with the hand that wasn't holding coffee, "after those _awesome_ dudes gave us the bong of frickin' destiny, Katty thought it would be cool to go to a badger reservation. So we did and those guys we met came with us. You made out with one of 'em, by the way. Think her name was Kate. So we get to this reservation and hop over the gate and I- _immediately_- got attacked by at least three of the sonsa bitches."

"Ghosts?" asked Sam, curious. Dean glowered.

"No. Badgers."

Sam saw bruised peppering his brother's arms as well as several bite marks. It was so hard to take him seriously in that shirt.

"Let me tell ya, Sammy, they are not as cute as frickin' Animal Planet makes 'em out to be."

"You watch animal planet?"

Dean ignored this and continued.

"So the guys and you tried to help me out, and once you got 'em all off of me, y' look around and we see _her_-," he pointed a quivering finger at Katty, his voice rising steadily in indignation, "surrounded by a frickin' _herd_ of them, all of 'em nuzzling her and lovin' on her." He threw his arms out, and Sam was impressed that he didn't spill any coffee. "Why her? I'm lovable!"

Sam raised his eyebrows and said nothing. Dean pouted for a few seconds before continuing.

"So we left. Then, walkin' back, a cop pulls up next t' us t' see what we're doin' out so late. And we're all still high as kites, you were jabberin' on about the color of concrete and Katty was petting her stomach and sayin' somethin' bout 'my little lovely'."

The brothers exchanged a glance and Katty gave a loud snore.

"And we were just about to get away with everything when her 'little lovely' barked."

"What?"

"She stole a badger!" shouted Dean, pointing at Katty. "A goddamn badger, Sammy! A little- tiny- baby _badger_!"

Sam stared down at Katty, who was drooling on her pillow, and then looked back up at Dean, who had a crazed look in his eye, his mouth open and the inside corner of his right eye twitching.

"A badger."

"An honest to god badger."

"Did she get in trouble?"

"No. The cop started laughing, almost fell over, took it from her, and let her off with a warning. She cried the whole way back. She really wanted that badger."

"…fun night."

"Yeah, then I passed out two streets from the hotel, and when I woke up, I was on the bed and couldn't move, and you," here Dean glowered ferociously at his brother, "thought it would be a good idea to build a fort around me. So I texted Dad. Five times. All the same thing."

Sam was intrigued. "Did he say anything back?"

"Of course not, Sammy, it's dad."

"Well, what did you say?"

Dean held the phone out to Sam, and Sam squinted at it. All five texts read 'Dad dad dad dad dad dddaadd dddddaaaaaad dad.'

Sam looked to his brother. "I wouldn't respond to that either."

Dean sat back with a shrug, regarding the little screen. "I don't know. I think it's pretty articulate."

Katty gave a loud groan and sat up, blinking slowly and looking in between the brothers.

"What the hell happened?" she said, her voice raspy.

The brothers exchanged a look.

"You take this one," said Dean.

**TBC...

* * *

**

"Tik Tok" by Kesha

A/N: Every now and then there will be a mostly stand alone chapter to break up the monotony and too have a little fun :D I had fun writing this. As I have never been drunk or high, however, I had to do some ~research~. I was aided by the website 'texts from last night'. For those who are interested, here are the originals.

-_thank you for bringing me home and putting me in my bed. The pillow fort you built around me is also appreciated._

- _for some reason, my father is not resonding to the five texts I sent him that all read: "Dad dad dad dad dad dddaadd dddddaaaaaad dad."_

Please review! I'd love to hear what you think of this chapter and of the story in general. Any other mishaps you want these three to get into? Any particular monsters you'd like to see? Characters? Reviews are your friend!

Love,

K.


	6. Hey, Soul Sister

_**Backseat Driver **_**by Katty Noir

* * *

**_I knew I wouldn't forget you, and so I went and let you blow my mind_  
_ You're sweet moon beam, the smell of you in every single dream I dream_  
_ I knew when we collided, you're the one I have decided who's one of my kind_

_ Hey soul sister, ain't that Mr. Mister on the radio, stereo, the way you move ain't fair, you know,_  
_ Hey soul sister, I don't want to miss a single thing you do tonight_

_ Just in time, I'm so glad you have a one-track mind like me_  
_ You gave my life direction, a game show love connection we can't deny_  
_ I'm so obsessed, my heart is bound to beat right out my untrimmed chest_  
_ I believe in you, like a virgin, you're Madonna, and I'm always gonna wanna blow your mind_

**Chapter Five: Hey, Soul Sister**

"Hey, Sammy," said Dean around a mouthful of bacon-cheeseburger. He flapped the newspaper at his brother, swallowed, and said, "Think I got somethin'."

They were in a diner, a few hours out of New York. They'd been back in America a total of four hours, were still jetlagged and a little hungover, and were already, it seemed, on another case.

Not for the first time, Katty wondered if she'd made a mistake in signing up for this life.

Sam took the rustling newspaper and glanced at Katty. Her eyes were half-closed and she was staring vacantly at her cup of coffee, mouth open and shoulders slumped; the after effects of rather intense jetlag and a first hangover. Sam just shook his head, lips twitching.

"Lizzie Borden house," said Dean, raising his eyebrows and hitting the back of the paper with a fork. Sam looked at him over the top of the paper.

"Thought that was just a tourist attraction."

"Yeah, well, we know the story's real," said Dean with a last shrug, settling back in his seat. "Girl goes crazy, whacks her dad and step-mom-" Dean paused, eyes darting around, and cocked his head. "Like, literally, _whacks_ them."

"That's a fun word," said Katty in a far-away, dazed sort of voice, still gazing, half-asleep, into her coffee. "Whacks. Whacks. Whuu-acks."

"You sound retarded," said Dean flatly. "Shut up."

Katty shut up and kept staring.

"But three days ago," continued Dean after shoving half of his baconater into his mouth, "a grou' o' dose 'ost 'unners went in."

He gave a massive swallow and Sam stared at him, drop jawed, trying to figure out if he was concerned at the amount of cholesterol his brother had been ingesting or that he'd been able to understand him.

"You're my hero," said Katty, her voice still dry and dreamy.

"I know," said Dean to Katty before returning to his conversation with Sam. "And one of them died. Head smashed in with an axe."

"Just like the dad and step mother."

"Yep."

"What are the police saying?"

"They say one of the ghost hunters did it."

Sam shrugged and dropped the paper on the table. "Guess we're going to Pennsylvania."

Katty's head fell onto the table with a thud, rattling the plates and silver wear.

Ten minutes later, they were back in the Impala and speeding along the summery, eastern highway.

Dean rolled the windows down and cranked up the music, a grin on his face as the wind blew through his short hair.

"You know," he said, speaking loudly over the music and the wind, "London was nice and all, but there's nothin' like a long road and you and your own car and your own music."

"Yeah," said Sam, his elbow out of the window, a grin spreading over his face. "Yeah, this is nice."

Dean glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Katty, lying across the backseat with her head on her pillow. She looked back at him and gave a long grunt.

Dean looked back at the road in front of him and cocked his head.

"Articulate as ever, I see."

000

"Hi, we're from the University of Pennsylvania." Sam gave the security guard a wide and innocent smile. "Forensic majors."

"Writing a thesis about axe wounds and blood drops," said Katty, and the guard's eyes flashed to her and her charming grin- the plunging neckline of her shirt probably didn't hurt, either.

"And we were wondering if we could take a look at Blake Stewart's body," finished Dean, giving a smile that was not quite as innocent as Sam's or charming as Katty's. The guard looked between them, shrugged, and rose to his feet, his chair scraping gratingly across the tiled floor.

"Follow me," he said and led them down a hallway with flickering lights. The Winchester exchanged a glance; they were surprised that the exchange had resulted in them getting what they wanted.

"It's her shirt," mouthed Dean, pointing a thumb at Katty, and the Sasquatch-sized-Winchester rolled his eyes.

The guard opened a door to a cold, grey room with one wall that looked like an enormous filing cabinet. Dean saw Katty repress a shudder, and he would have smirked at her, but he didn't much like morgues either. Too cold, too gray, too… _dead_.

The guard pulled out one of the trays with a metallic scrape, and even Dean winced when he saw the body. Katty recoiled with an obvious grimace, her face draining.

Dean shook his head, giving a low whistle. "Wow. Someone went a little- crazy."

The guard snorted. "Yeah, ya got that right."

He left them a few minutes later after making a few awkward passes at Katty while the boys looked at the body. She shot him down politely and sighed as the door shut. The boys didn't even pretend that they hadn't been listening.

"It's the shirt," said Dean, bent over the body's mangled head as Katty stood next to him. She just snorted and gave a half shrug.

"No argument there."

Sam, as usual, was rolling his eyes at their good-natured banter, and leaned over the mangled cranium of the victim.

"Well," he said, raising his eyebrows and wrinkling his nose, "there's really not much here to go on."

"There's a smashed-in skull," said Katty, always helpful, as she stared at the remains of the skull.

"Yeah, _that _gives us something to go on," snarked Dean. Katty gave him a wide, 'I know I'm adorable' grin that made him roll his eyes even as his lips twitched.

"Apart from his head, though," said Sam, yet again ignoring the other two, "there's nothing wrong with him."

"Just like Lizzie's family," said Dean, while Katty shrugged.

"The head was enough, though."

Dean sighed. "Guess we should go check out the house."

"Get everything you need?" the guard asked as they walked past him.

"Everything," they said in unison, and then the door slammed shut behind them. The guard watched as they walked, side by side, with an incredible range in heights, to the Impala. They climbed in, the girl in the backseat, and sped off, classic rock playing loudly.

000

"This is a cheery place," said Katty, staring up at the rickety house, leaning up against the Impala as the boys dug through the open trunk. "People stay here? Willingly?"

"What do you mean?" asked Dean as Sam slammed the trunk shut, walking around the classic car to her. She nodded at the house.

"It's a bed-and-breakfast," she said. Dean regarded the house for a moment and then shrugged.

"Nothing like murder to make a honeymoon spot."

"That's messed up."

"Gives us an easy cover," said Sam, always practical, gesturing loosely at the house. "That'll make things a little easier."

They got their duffels (the Winchesters' were black; Katty's, a bright blue), Sam grabbed a credit card and some IDs and then they approached the house, Katty eyeing it warily.

"Getting' any ghost vibes, kid?" asked Dean under his breath, half jokingly, as he pushed the door open and the bell gave a chime that was cheerful and ironic, considering the locale. He watched her look around, an intense look on her face.

"Something's… off," she said, her voice a little confused and her brow furrowed. Dean chuckled.

"That tends to happen when people die violent."

The receptionist was an attractive man in maybe his early twenties, with brown hair and piercing, dusky blue eyes. Dean noticed Katty staring as they approached the front desk, and he smirked.

Teenagers and their hormones.

"One room," said Dean gruffly, giving the man a tightening of his lips that liked to pretend it was a smile.

"Two queens?" asked the receptionist, glancing at Katty and then performing something like a double take. Dean repressed the urge to roll his eyes; she got a lot of stares. It wasn't that she resembled Megan Fox, or anything, but, until you looked closely, she looked ordinary. Once one looked closely, though, they saw that there was nothing ordinary about her, and that's when the staring started. Dean found it amusing.

"Yep."

He gave Katty an accommodating smile a slid _her _the room key with a wink. She blushed, which was probably the girliest thing Dean had ever seen her do, and grinned, her eyelashes brushing her cheeks as she looked down.

Something snapped in Dean's mind. It may have been logic and common sense.

Dean turned his head slowly, all traces of amusement at Katty's hormones gone, to glare menacingly at the boy before putting a rough arm around her shoulders and guiding her to the stairs without thinking about it. She gave him an odd but not unhappy look from under her dark lashes, Sam glanced at him with a brow raised, and the receptionist cleared his throat awkwardly, but they all said nothing.

000

"I mean, did you see him staring at her?" asked Dean later, his deep voice indignant. "What a-a-a jerk!"

Sam just looked at him, eyes narrowed slightly in confusion.

"You're getting kind of… protective."

Dean looked up at him for a second with wide eyes and an open mouth. "I'm not…pro_tective_," he said, his voice overly scornful.

Sam chuckled and shook his head. "Nothing wrong with it, Dean. She's a girl- a pretty girl- and she's younger than us." He shrugged. "It's natural you're feeling protective."

"Sam," said Dean, his voice now very warning. "I am _not_ protective.

The bathroom door opened and Katty walked out, looking more made-up than normal. Her hair was down and her eyelids her golden. She ruined the pretty look, however, by tripping over her bag as soon as she stepped out of the bathroom.

Dean raised his eyebrows. "Nice," he said.

"That didn't happen," she said firmly, raising her eyebrows. Sam smiled and Dean rolled his eyes.

"Course it didn't," said Sam.

"What's with the get-up?" asked Dean, eyeing her. She was dressed up, too- for her, at least. Jeans and a nice shirt with a v-neck that Dean was enjoying. She gave him a shark-like grin as she dug her iPhone and earbuds out of her bag.

"What get-up?"

He followed her to the door, almost without realizing that he was doing it.

"The not-crazy hair and the- the glitter-"

She put in an earbud.

"Don't know what you're talking about."

But her grin said otherwise.

"Going to get some food," she said, and shut the door behind her, taking the scent of some kind of flower with her.

Dean stared at the closed door.

"Protective," called Sam to his brother with a small smile.

000

Katty came back two hours later with bags of Sonic, a grin, and a glowing blush in her cheeks that Dean associated with chick flicks and Sam with Jess.

"Took you a while to get some food," said Dean shortly, his hands behind his head and his legs stretched out across the bed, crossed at the ankles.

"Yeah," she said, putting her iPhone on the dresser. "Got to talking."

Sam looked up from his computer and Dean raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah?" he asked, his voice forcedly nonchalant. "With who?"

Her grin widened, her eyes sparkling. "With Sawyer. The receptionist."

She sat down the food and then flopped back on the bed next to Sam with a sigh, still grinning widely. Dean looked at the way her breasts sat on her chest, the silver chain of her cross pooling in the hollow of her collarbone. He swallowed and looked away.

_What would Sammy do. What would Sammy do._

"You talked for two hours?" he asked, his voice very gruff. He cleared his throat.

"An hour and a half. Then he took me to Sonic. Got you guys some food."

"Well, aren't you considerate."

"I try." She rolled off the bed suddenly, disappearing into the bathroom with her bag and emerging again her baggy pants and glasses. Dean found it a little easier to breathe.

He started getting warm again when she sucked ketchup off her finger.

000

The lights were off and it had to be past three in the morning.

Katty didn't know what'd woken her up. She lay still for a few minutes, eyes open wide against the pillow and the pressing darkness, her heart pounding strangely hard, as though she'd been running.

For a minute, everything was fine.

Then the drumming started. It was in her head, banging and pounding, echoing over her whole body. Then there was something else inside her head, shrieking and whirring and screaming.

She curled up into a ball, arms over her head. Her skin was crawling, her heart pounding in her ears over the drums and shrieking.

It was more intense than pain and it was unbearable.

The drums grew slowly fainter, to be replaced by the sound of her own rapid, echoing heartbeats.

Her eyes were open wide, her chest was heaving with pants, and she was beyond terrified.

She could hear Dean and Sam's breathing, and that calmed her slightly, although she was near hysterics. She moved herself over under the covers and pressed her back to Sam's chest. She squeezed her eyes shut tight and focused on the warmth at her back.

000

Sam woke up to grey light and noticed, surprised in a groggy kind of way, that Katty was pressed against him. He stared, blinked, and then he noticed the trying tear tracks on her face, how she was curled up into a ball when she normally slept stretched out.

He hesitated, and then he put an arm around her, pulling her closer to him.

She made a quiet noise in her sleep.

"It's okay," he murmured, only half awake himself. "It's okay."

000

Dean woke them up fully a few hours later with two well aimed pillows. Sam blinked himself into wakefulness while Katty swore groggily, turning over and stretching under the covers.

"Douchebag," she said groggily.

"Yeah, well," said Dean, his face oddly tense. "While you two were _cuddling_… someone else died last night."

Sam sat upright and Katty flipped onto her back, both of them staring at Dean.

"Axe?" asked Sam. Dean nodded.

"When?" asked Katty, her face white and her voice cracking. Dean gave her an odd look.

Sometime after three."

Her eyes widened and she grew even paler.

"Kat?" asked Dean, stepping forward, his brow furrowing. "What's going on?"

"After three? You sure?"

"That's what the cops said."

Sam put a hand on her shoulder. "Hey, you okay?"

"I knew," she said quietly, her eyes almost perfectly round and looking very grey instead of their normal violent blue. "I felt- something. Last night. I woke up and-"

She swallowed. Dean leaned over the bed and grasped her shoulders.

"And what, kid?"

Her eyes were bright, wide, and scared, and her face was ashen. "I don't know," she said. "I don't know."

000

Sam and Katty got dressed and they went down to the ground floor, still crawling with cops and reporters. Dean, still wanted for murders he didn't commit, made himself scarce. Sam plastered on his best 'innocent' look and went to a female reporter while Katty approached Sawyer.

"Hey," said Sam to the reporter, his brow furrowing as he looked around him.

0

"What happened?" asked Katty, her eyes wide and concerned.

0

The reporter shrugged, her own expression perplexed as she looked up at Sam. "A boarder was killed last night."

0

"Who?" asked Katty. Sawyer pulled out a sign-in list.

"His name was James Edwards- he was supposed t' be checking out this morning." He was quiet for a minute and then looked up at Katty, his husky blue eyes torn. "He was nice, last night, when he checked in. A lot of people aren't."

0

"Do you know what happened?" Sam asked, his tone concerned, his eyes widened under furrowed brows.

The reporter was shaking her pretty head in disbelief, but not at his question. "Someone smashed the poor guy's head in with an axe. Can you believe it?"

"No," said Sam quietly. "I can't."

000

"Here," said Dean, nonchalantly tossing an EMF detector to Katty. She caught it and gave him an odd look.

"Dean, they want to question all of the boarders," said Sam as he walked into the room, slamming the door behind him, his young face drawn. Dean smirked, supremely untroubled.

"Figured they would. Checked out this morning and came in the back."

"Won't that be a little suspicious, you leaving first thing in the morning?"

"Good logic, kiddo, but no. Paid a hooker and got me an alibi." He winked. Katty shook her head with a grin.

"I wanna be just like you when I grow up."

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders and Sam watched, curious, his lips twitching slightly.

"Who doesn't?" he asked playfully, looking down at her, and Sam noted the way Dean's eyes went from Katty's eyes to her cleavage to her lips, and then how Dean licked his lips, just barely.

Sam raised a hand, now grinning broadly.

Dean had a crush.

_Oh, this was gonna be good._

Dean rolled his eyes, letting his arm slide off of Katty's shoulder.

"Alright, enough talk. We got one seriously pissed-off dead chick to catch."

They started on the top floor- there were only three, and the top was empty. Most of the residents had checked out as soon as they had been questioned; murders a hundred years in the past were a novelty, but murders last night were just a little too real.

For the Winchesters, though, it was just a part of day-to-day life. Katty was still adjusting to it; ghosts, and even demons, were one thing. The loss of human life that could have been prevented if only she'd been able to read the signs was much more difficult to deal with.

"This is really creepy," said Katty conversationally as Dean opened a door to the second room.

"This is nothing."

That floor was clean, until the very last room; the room Lizzie had slept in as a child.

All three EMFs went insane. The trio looked down, Katty in the middle, all their eyebrows raised.

"Well, then," said Katty.

000

"Seems pretty straightforward to me, guys," said Dean, shutting the door to their room behind him. "Find her body, salt it," he shrugged, "and burn it. Got an easy one. Again."

"We should do a little more research on Lizzie herself before we start burning," said Sam, sitting on the bed and pulling off one of his shoes.

"Yeah, you sure it's Lizzie?" called Katty from the bathroom, where she was peeling off her T-shirt with the door open. Dean glanced at her, looked away, realized what he'd seen, and did a double take so fast he almost threw out his back.

"You a stripper now?"

"Sweetie, I've seen you naked and I've shared a bed with Sam for the past two weeks," she said, pulling a tank top on over her pale, slightly chubby torso. "Think we passed the modesty line a while back."

Dean and Sam exchanged a looked before shrugging and continuing the conversation. It wasn't as though they'd never seen a naked girl before, after all.

"Sure seems like it's her."

"I don't know," said Katty, now pulling her hair back into a French braid. "What I felt last night- I mean, it was really freaking bizarre. It's happened to me a few times before, but it's still weird, and I just don't think a spirit would do that."

"You think there's a demon involved," said Dean. It wasn't a question. Katty nodded, an odd look on her face, as she walked out of the bathroom and pulled a plaid button up on over the tank top.

"Like, _the_ demon?" asked Sam, sitting up a little bit straighter. Katty hesitated.

"Yeah," she said, drawing out the word a little bit. "Guys- there's something you should-"

But before she could finish there was a knock on the door. Sam and Dean exchanged a wide-eyed, furrowed-brow look and then Dean dived into the bathroom, pulling the door half-shut.

Katty opened the door and Sam saw Sawyer, his hands shoved into his pockets, grinning down at Katty. Katty turned around (_blushing_, Sam noted with some surprise) and gave him a smile while Sawyer waved at him, somewhat awkwardly. She then turned back around and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her. Sam stared. Dean stuck his head out of the bathroom.

"What happened? Who was it?"

Sam turned to him, the same shocked expression still on his face.

"I think Katty has a date."

Dean's brow furrowed deeply. "What? Katty? A date?"

Sam nodded and Dean took a step out of the bathroom.

"Are we talking about the same girl here, Sam? Short, blue eyes, huge boobs," Dean cupped his hands in front of his own chest, "belches like a man, wears pants with cakes on them? _That_ girl- has a _date_?"

There was a pause.

"With who?" asked Dean indignantly.

000

Sam knew his brother. Knew him so well it was almost scary- he knew when Dean was hungry, when he was sad, when he wanted to watch a movie, when he was horny, and he knew when his brother had a crush.

He would never, never admit it, Sam knew that too. But Sam knew the signs. Dean would get protective, _deny _he was being protective, get more protective, get territorial, and he would start to grin. A lot.

Dean had a crush, and it was on a seventeen year old. The kind of girls he normally liked could have been on magazines; Katty was short, a little chubby, and like no girl they'd ever met before.

Oh yeah. This was gonna be good.

000

"This is _retarded_, Dean," snapped Sam as they sat in the Impala, staring into the IHOP in which the somewhat mismatched couple were now seated.

"No, it's not," said Dean gruffly, not taking his eyes off of the laughing pair. "He's older, and she's young and- naive."

Sam raised an eyebrow, glanced at Katty, who was now balancing a spoon on her nose, and back at his brother.

"Are we talking about the same girl here, Dean? Cause I'm pretty sure that girl- even if she might have problems with demons- can handle some guy."

Dean gave a noncommittal grunt without taking his eyes away from the pair. Sam scoffed quietly, rolling his eyes, looking between Katty and Sawyer and his brother.

"Dean, what's this really about? Cause- I don't think it's about not being able to protect herself, since you've been the one saying sense we met her that she can."

"She can with supernatural stuff," said Dean stiffly. "Not- not guys."

"She's not thirteen, Dean."

There was a pause as Sam watched Dean and Dean's jaw clenched.

"Do you have a crush on her?"

Dean scoffed, looking away from the restaurant for the first time. "That's- that's retarded, Sammy, of course I don't have a crush on her-"

But the knowing and smug look in Sam's eyes quelled Dean's protests.

"You do!" crowed Sam triumphantly, cackling a little. "You do have a crush on her!"

"Shut _up,"_ growled Dean, barely moving his lips and not making eye contact.

"She's not gonna hear you, Dean," sniggered Sam. "Oh, hell, this is fantastic-"

"How the hell is this fantastic, Sam? She's leaving in a month- you're the one who's been harping that she's seventeen- chances are, once we drop her off at the end of the summer, we'll forget about her and things'll go back to the way they were. The way they should be."

"Do you really think that?" asked Sam, his voice quiet but skeptic. "Cause I don't."

Dean said nothing but his jaw ground.

"Dude, just go in there and-"

"Now way, Sammy. It's just a crush, it'll ride it's course, I just need to get laid, that's all."

"Seriously?" said Sam, ignoring the last half of this statement. "You're nervous? Dean Winchester- is scared to tell a seventeen year-old how he feels?"

"I don't normally feel anything, Sam, and that's what scares the hell outta me. Normally it's just sex, but with her- I wanna, you know, spend time with her," Dean said, looking as though the words surprised even him. "Talk to her."

Sam was grinning very widely now. "Oh, you've got it bad.:

Dean gave him a quick, glowering glance.

"Barging in on her date isn't going to do any good, Sam."

"Maybe not," said Sam with a shrug and a grin, before opening the door and sliding out. Dean, more than a little panicked, followed.

"Sam!"

But his big little brother was already almost at the door, his hands shoved carelessly into his pockets.

"Sam!" hissed Dean, but Sam, still soundly ignoring him, pushed open the doors and strode in. Dean, after fiercely muttering a few choice words, followed.

Katty looked up as they approached, her smile first freezing in surprise and then widening.

"Hey," said Sam, giving an easy wave to the two of them. Dean gave a terse smile before shooting a 'you are seriously going to pay for this later' look at Sam, who just glanced at him, clearly unaffected.

"Hi," said Katty, drawing out the word, pleased but also a little confused. Sawyer looked from Katty to the casual Sam to the unhappy Dean and back, smiling slightly.

"We saw you two and thought we'd say hey," said Sam, still smiling carelessly. Dean was staring in a determined sort of way at the floor. Katty nodded slowly, confused but smiling indulgently.

"Dean needs to tell you something," said Sam to Katty with a careless gesture, his voice light. Dean now shot him a 'your death will be slow and painful' look. Sam just looked iughly amused.

Katty looked to Sawyer, who just shrugged; he, too, looked more amused than anything.

"I'll be right here," he said, and Katty rose to her feet, looking expectantly (and a little nervously?) at Dean. He gestured loosely to the door, swearing violently at Sam in his mind.

"Let's go-outside."

She nodded and followed him wordlessly. Once she passed him, he turned and made a series of violent motions at Sam, including slashing a finger across his throat and pointing at his brother, but Sam just waved cheerfully back at him.

_Stupid tall interfering son of a bitch-_

Katty stood on the sidewalk and looked up at him, her blue eyes patient and searching.

"I- um-"

_Damn you, Sammy._

"I-"

"Spit it out," she said with a grin. Dean swallowed and looked at her, his mouth slightly open. He'd never- not since he was thirteen anyway- had problems talking to girls. Why this one? She wasn't as pretty as the girls he normally hooked up with.

_Because_, said the voice in his head that sounded annoyingly like Sam, _she's the only one who's more than just a pretty face and a sexy body._

"I just- just wanted to-"

She was still looking at him with that knowing, bright gaze, and now one of her eyebrows was quirking up.

"-to warn- you," he finished, somewhat hopefully. Both of her eyebrows were raised. "About that guy."

"Sawyer?"

"Yeah," he said, picking up steam now that he'd found a way out of this embarrassing situation. "I mean, he's, what, twenty-five? And he's on a date with a seventeen year old? Isn't that kind of… creepy?"

"My ID says I'm twenty one, remember?"

Dean was momentarily lost for words and just stared at her.

"Oh. Yeah."

She looked at him for another long moment and when he'd made no attempt to continue the conversation, she said, "So… am I sufficiently warned now?"

Dean gave her a very forced smile. "Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, you're good. Just wanted to- you know- keep you safe."

She gave him a smile and walked past him, patting him on the arm as she brushed past him.

000

The Winchesters drove back in the direction of the motel, both of them quiet, although for different reasons. Dean dropped Sam off at a local library to double check their history before they started digging up graves, and Dean went back to the motel and brooded.

Katty arrived 'home' (it was sad, Dean thought, thinking of motel rooms as home) before Sam. Dean lying on his bed and reading on of her books, looked up as the door clicked shut. She was smiling but there was something pensive in her face too. Dean watched her approach and then she collapsed onto the bed next to him with a sigh, staring up at the ceiling.

There was a pause as Dean looked at her and she looked at the ceiling.

"So?" asked Dean, after a few moments of this. Katty didn't look away from the ceiling; Dean, personally, didn't see what was so interesting about it. "How did it go?"

"He's perfect," she said simply, but her tone wasn't happy. Merely observatory.

"He's- what?"

"Perfect," she said, looking at him for the first time. "And I mean that in the most realistic sense. He is my dream man."

Dean's chest felt oddly tight. He raised his eyebrows, his face becoming a mask. "Oh."

"Yeah," she sighed. "It sucks."

Dean started, his brow now furrowing. "Yeah?" he asked. "How's that?"

She began listing. "He's funny, he's compassionate, her's kind, not only is her Christian but he's Orthodox, and seriously, I don't even know what the odds are of that- heck, he even looks like everything I want in a guy. But it's not gonna work."

"Somethin' pretty handy got invented back in the eighties, kiddo. I like to call it the Long-Distance-Relationship."

She snorted at that. " 'S'not the distance I'm worried about."

"What is it?"

She looked at him as though he'd asked something very stupid. "I'm going to be hunting," she said, slowly, as if speaking to someone with a low intelligence.

Dean, for a second, thought his heart had stopped beating.

"You're going to trade the guy who is practically your soul mate- to hunt?"

"He's not my soul mate," she corrected gently. "He's more like a- a fantasy come true. And yeah, I am."

She paused, looking at the ceiling again. "There is one thing, though. I want to kiss him before we leave."

"Do it, then," said Dean, trying to make his voice sound nonchalant.

Katty was now staring determinately at the ceiling. "There's- um- sort of a problem." She drew in a deep breath and said, very quickly, "I've never kissed anyone before."

Dean sat upright, brow very furrowed, and stared at her like she'd grown a second head. She met his gaze, her blue gaze clearly awkward.

He was on the verge of thinking of a reply that would have been, he was sure, tactful and witty when the door opened and Sam strode in.

"Alright," he said, plainly unperturbed by the sight of Katty and his brother on the bed. "I found out where Lizzie's buried, so as soon as the sun goes down, we can salt her, burn her, and get out of here."

000

Katty was in the bathroom and Dean was relaying, in a quiet voice, what she'd told him to Sam.

"She said- what?" asked Sam, his brow furrowing.

"She's a virgin, Sammy!" hissed Dean, looking furtively to the door. "And not just that, but she's never even kissed anyone before!"

"Holy…"

"I forgot virgins exist, Sam. I feel like I was talking to a unicorn!"

000

As they'd only been three again for two and a half weeks, there were two shovels, which meant a lot of trading. For the boys, it was nice. Digging up graves was not fun, and this meant they got to relax every now and then. Katty, however, was not exactly enjoying herself. She was sweaty, smelled like a sock that had been left in the locker room for too long, and had a crick in her neck. The Winchesters were completely unsympathetic.

They finished at two in the morning and Sam kicked in the coffin, revealing the decomposed corpse of Elizabeth Borden.

"Here," said Dean, handing Katty a can of salt. She tipped it over and coated the bones as Sam poured in lighter fluid, and then Dean dropped in a match and the skeleton erupted into flames, illuminated the silhouettes of the three hunters against the night.

From some distance away, a man watched them, standing next to a tree. He was middle-aged, but not unattractive. His face was made of hard lines and there was a cleft in his chin; his hands were shoved into the pockets of a jacket that was entirely unnecessary, due to the heat of the season.

He smiled and his eyes flashed yellow.

**TBC...

* * *

**

"Hey Soul Sister," by Train.

A/N: Hey, guys! Well, here's a new chapter, obviously. Things are going to begin to pick up, plot wise, in the next chapter.

What will happen with Dean and his little crush? Hmm... guess we'll have to find out! Please review!

Love,

K.


	7. The Paths Not Taken

_**Backseat Driver **_**by Katty Noir

* * *

**

_There's a drumming noise inside my head_  
_ That starts when you're around_  
_ I swear that you could hear it_  
_ It makes such an all mighty sound_

_ There's a drumming noise inside my head_  
_ That throws me to the ground_  
_ I swear that you should hear it_  
_ It makes such an all mighty sound_

_ Louder than sirens_  
_ Louder than bells_  
_ Sweeter than heaven_  
_ And hotter than hell_

**Chapter Six: The Paths Not Taken**

_Previously on Backseat Driver-_

_They finished at two in the morning and Sam kicked in the coffin, revealing the decomposed corpse of Elizabeth Borden._

_"Here," said Dean, handing Katty a can of salt. She tipped it over and coated the bones as Sam poured in lighter fluid, and then Dean dropped in a match and the skeleton erupted into flames, illuminated the silhouettes of the three hunters against the night._

_From some distance away, a man watched them, standing next to a tree. He was middle-aged, but not unattractive. His face was made of hard lines and there was a cleft in his chin; his hands were shoved into the pockets of a jacket that was entirely unnecessary, due to the heat of the season._

_He smiled and his eyes flashed yellow_.

000

They crawled into bed sometime after three, sweaty and tired and sore, and were sound asleep within seconds.

Katty was tired enough, that night, that she didn't dream. Or, if she did, she had no recollection of it when she awoke in the morning.

They awoke to the sounds of sirens.

000

Well, to be more precise, they awoke to the sounds of frantic knocking on the door over the sirens.

"Katty," a male voice was saying insistently, muffled through the door. "Katty, are you in there?"

The three hunters groaned and Katty sat up, blinking and squinting, trying to comprehend what was going on.

Several things registered quickly in her mind.

One, it was barely light out and looked as though it were about to storm. Two, there was the sound of many sirens from below them. Three, someone was knocking on the door and frantically calling her name.

Still only half-awake but quickly becoming more focused by the instinct that something was very, very wrong, she swung herself out of bed even as Sam groaned and Dean put a pillow over his ears, and walked clumsily to the door, blinking the sleep out of her eyes, still squinting. She opened it to see a panicked Sawyer who looked like he'd just rolled out of bed, and she realized she'd forgotten to put on her glasses. She squinted at him, and his dark face came into focus.

"We need to go," he said, his eyes widening seriously, moving into their room without permission. "We need to leave, now-"

"Okay," she said, squinting up into his worried face. "Okay, let me get Sam and Dean-"

"-there's no time-"

"I'll _make_ time," she snapped, before turning back and running over to Sam.

"Sam, Sammy- wake up."

He sat up and squinted at her, his hair flopping into his half-closed eyes.

"Wha-"

"We need to go," she said, widening her eyes for emphasis. "Now, Sam, get your stuff-"

He rolled out of bed, ran his hands over his face, and began throwing things into his suitcase.

Katty turned to Dean and clasped his bare shoulder, shaking him violently with one hand even as she shoved her black, square-framed glasses onto her face with the other. Everything came into focus. "Dean, hey, Dean- wake up, we gotta go-"

He sat up with a groan and shook his head vigorously, and when he looked back at her, his golden-green eyes were clear.

"Katty- what-"

"Get your stuff," she said. Sawyer came into the room and began throwing Katty's things into bags.

"What's going on?" she asked, going next to him and grabbing her jeans, pulling them on under one of Dean's shirts that she'd used as PJs last night; normally, she slept with pants and a sports bra on, more from personal modesty than anything, but last night, she'd been so sore and so tired she'd decided she didn't give a damn anymore and had slept bra-les and pants-less. She was regretting that now. She hated not wearing a bra.

"Someone was murdered last night," he said tersely. Her jaw dropped.

"So why are we leaving-"

"Because I," he said, now dropping the bag and glaring at her, "found a wanted poster on my desk this morning before I found the body and called 911, and it had _his_ picture on it."

He pointed an accusing finger at Dean, glaring at Katty, his gaze dark and burning under the few pieces of dark hair that were falling into his eyes. Dean and Sam exchanged a look and Dean shrugged.

Katty stayed calm, staring at Sawyer for just a moment as wheels turned in her mind. "Alright," she said. "Then let's get out of here. There's a perfectly reasonable explanation, I promise."

He glared at her for a second longer. "There'd better be."

Two minutes later everything was in a bag, a pocket or shoved down someone's pants and they were in the Impala, Sawyer and Katty (now with a bra on) in the backseat.

She looked over at him.

"Why don't you have a car?" she asked.

"Why do you have a gun?" he shot back, referencing the piece of metal sticking out of her waistband. "Next left," he said to Dean, and they swerved violently onto a tree-lined street.

"Third house on the right."

Katty's jaw dropped. Sawyer's house looked like something out of a Better Homes and Gardens magazine; it was two story, red brick, with trees down a long driveway and a bay window to the right of the house.

The hunters and Sawyer climbed out of the car; Katty was still staring. Dean let out a low whistle.

A rumble of thunder sounded in the distance and lightening flashed across the dark gray sky. The wind swirled around the mismatched quartet, whispering and whistling.

They climbed up the front steps and Sawyer turned the key, leading them into a polished foyer that opened into the living room. There were stairs to the left and one step leading down into the living room; to their right was a kitchen.

Sam raised his eyebrows.

"Just set your stuff anywhere," said Sawyer shortly. Katty grabbed his arm.

"How did- how did the person die-"

He sighed, stiffening at first and then looking back at her. "She was impaled on a spiked wheel."

Dean and Sam winced. Katty's eyes widened and her face paled as thunder rumbled again, closer now.

"What was her name?"

He threw his hands up, looking frustrated and very stressed, which, under the circumstances, was understandable. "I don't know-"

"Sawyer, it's important."

"Started with a K, I think. Katrina. No- it was Catherine. With a C."

Katty's mouth closed and the Winchesters recognized the look in her eyes.

"Kat?" said Dean, stepping forward.

Sawyer glanced at him and then back to Katty, his eyes hardening. "I'd like an explanation, too, Kat."

"Hey, man, she doesn't owe you anything-" said Dean, his voice hard, turning to Sawyer, his brow furrowing. Sawyer stepped forward, dusky eyes flashing.

"She owes me an explanation-"

"-for what?"

"-of _you_, for one thing-"

"Stop," said Katty and Sam loudly.

"Dean, calm down," said Sam, raising his eyebrows. Dean didn't take his glare off of Sawyer but he shut his mouth.

Katty had her hands on her hips. Outside, rain was beginning to fall, darkening the barely-light sky.

It was six forty-five in the morning.

"Sawyer, for right now, just accept there are things you can't understand-"

"I am harboring a fugitive!" he shouted, his face contorting, pointing at Dean. Katty looked taken aback for just a minute before her face hardened too. "I am risking _everything _for a girl I met two days ago! There is enough in those two sentences I don't understand, Katty- now I want to understand why you're here, what's going on, why people in my town are dying this way-"

"Think about it," said Katty, very quietly, and Dean stared and her as Sam looked to Sawyer. "If you're as smart as I think you are, you'll put it together."

His hands fell to his sides and he stared at her. She looked back at him, her gaze calm but burning, just beneath the surface.

"That's impossible," he said, his voice calmer now, raising his eyebrows.

"Yeah, that's what she meant when she said there are things you can't understand."

"Dean," said Sam quietly, his eyes flicking between Dean and the other two, standing six inches away, their eyes locked.

Sawyer took a breath, breaking the eye contact first, turning around, away from Katty, his hands in his hair, and collapsed on his couch.

"You're ghost hunter," he said flatly, his eyes closed.

"We got a bright one here," muttered Dean.

"And you came when the murders started."

"We got rid of Lizzie's ghost," said Katty quietly, her eyes locked on the clearly distressed receptionist. "Whatever's doing it now-"

She hesitated, something flashing across her face and then gave a half shrug, Dean's shirt sliding off one of her shoulders and resting on the top of her arm. She made no move to fix it.

"Well, it's different now."

Sam and Dean exchanged a look.

Katty, it appeared, was keeping secrets.

Sawyer's head was still buried in his hands, his elbows digging into his thighs and rain splashed onto the window behind him, painting a powerfully emotional picture.

"You hunt ghosts."

"Demons, too," said Dean, his voice overly and sarcastically conversational. "And, if we're really lucky, werewolves."

Sawyer gave a weak chuckle. "Werewolves exist, too?"

Katty moved over to the couch and sat next to him, putting a hand on his arm.

"I'm gonna barf," muttered Dean, rolling his eyes and angling himself away.

"Pretty much everything exists," Katty was explaining to Sawyer, her voice still calm. She was good at this; Dean was beginning to think she was used to telling people what they didn't want to hear. "Everything you had nightmares about as a kid- and things you've never even heard about- that's what we do, Sawyer. We fight 'em."

"Why?" he asked, looking up at her, something desperate etched into the lines on his young and handsome face, his dusky eyes bright. "Why-fight it?"

"Cause no one else will," said Sam. He and Dean moved over, too, Dean leaning against the wall and Sam sitting in a leather chair facing the couch.

"How do you even get into it-"

"We were raised this way," said Dean in his characteristically blunt manner. Sawyer stared up at him now, his dusky blue eyes meeting Dean's golden-green ones, before giving a wild, tension-filled laugh.

"What kind of parent raises their kid into this-?"

Sam somewhat agreed with this, though he knew now was not the time to bring it up, but Dean opened his mouth angrily to defend his father; Katty, to everyone's surprise, beat him to it.

"One who doesn't have choice." There was something else in her voice this time, as though she'd just realized something about the man she was talking to, and her brow was furrowed deeply. She sounded as though she was surprised someone didn't immediately understand this; after all, she had.

Sawyer turned to look at her, his eyes burning. "There's always," he said, his voice filled with weight, "a choice."

"See, _that_?" said Katty, her voice suddenly much harder and louder. She sat up straighter, looking at Sawyer with a gaze that was less comforting now and more blunt "That's what you can't understand. It's not- not the monsters- anyone can understand those if enough evidence is shoved under their noses. What you can't understand is that sometimes- sometimes, especially when it comes to this life, there _isn't_ a choice. And the people like their dad- like them- like me- we do this because we don't have a choice but we also do it because we have to. Cause something inside us forces us to- and you can't understand that."

Sam, Dean and Sawyer all stared at her. She blinked, looking as though she was as surprised as the rest of them by what had come out of her mouth.

"And that's probably the deepest thing you'll ever hear me say."

"What happened to you, then? If they were raised into it- how did _you_ get into this?"

There was a pause. It was now raining very heavily outside.

"I feel demons," she said, after a few moments of silence. Sawyer blinked, several times.

"What?"

000

Katty wanted to go back to sleep (she and the Winchesters were, after all, running on just three hours) but Sam and Dean shot her down, asked Sawyer to make a pot of coffee, and they were back to the drawing board.

"So," said Sam, his computer out and his hands clasped between his knees. "What do we know?"

"Spiked wheel," said Dean, clapping his hands together, very loudly and just once. "That sounds familiar… I just can't think _why_-"

"She was a saint," said Katty in a distant sort of voice, staring at the rain-splattered window. "St. Catherine."

Dean and Sam exchanged a look, then:

"Huh?" they said in unison. Katty looked up at them.

"Saint Catherine," she explained. "She's a martyr- and she was killed by being impaled on a spiked wheel."

Dean exhaled slowly, his cheeks ballooning and shaking his head. "I will never understand that."

"It's called _faith_, Dean. Some people are brave enough to die for it."

Dean looked like he was going to retort when Sam interrupted, his brow furrowed and his expression slightly bewildered.

"Wasn't the girl who was killed last night called Catherine?"

Katty nodded. Sam stared, brow still furrowed and mouth slightly open, at the computer screen for a moment or two, before turning back to his brother and the younger hunter.

"Katty's not your real name, is it?" he said, and Dean's head turned so fast he should have broken his neck. Katty, who was sitting on the sleeping Sawyer's couch, gave a tight smile.

"No," she said. "It's a nickname."

"A nickname for what?" asked Dean. Her eyes went to his, her mouth opening slightly for just a moment.

"For Kathryn."

"How's it spelled?"

"Different. With a K, and a Y, but that's not important- what's important is that- Saint Catherine? The one with the C and the spiked wheel? She's my patron saint."

"I don't know what that means," muttered Dean, looking to Sam. Sam's gaze, however, was fixed on Katty.

"I do," he said, his voice quiet and dark. "It means that something's after her."

Dean's now alarmed gaze turned to Katty.

"What?"

She gave a nonchalant shrug.

"The yellow-eyed-demon."

Dean stared at her, hard, for second, before looking back around to Sam. "I'm getting really tired of this son of a bitch."

Katty snorted and cocked her head. "You're gonna be a lot more tired of him before your story's over, don't worry. Now," she continued, before either of the boys could comment on this (and both of them looked like they wanted to), "I need to get in the motel."

"You're not going alone," said Dean warningly, pointing at her. She leveled her gaze on him.

"I have to."

"Katty, that's completely out of the question. It's one thing when Sam and I are with you, but I'm not letting you face this thing on your own."

"Dean-"

"Katty, no! I don't know what this thing wants with you, but it's come after you three times now-"

"-way more than that, actually-"

"-whatever, and it's proven that it wants you, bad-"

"-who doesn't?"

"Not the time, Kat," interjected Sam, his voice quiet but his eyes burning. Katty looked at him.

"Guys," she said. "It wants me, and I don't think it wants me dead, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't want me for his demon bride or anything. I think-" she hesitated. "I think he wants to talk."

Dean stared at her.

"Talk," he said flatly.

She nodded. "Yeah. I've heard he's a great conversationalist-"

"Enough with the jokes, kid!" snapped Dean, eyes flashing. Katty looked taken aback and very slightly hurt. "This isn't the time or the place-" he drew in a breath. "You're not going in alone," he said, pointing. "That's final."

And then he strode off into one of the bedroom and began beating a pillow.

000

Katty was sitting on Sawyer's front porch, seated comfortably in an old wooden rocker, staring off into the distance as rain poured down all around her.

She heard the front door open and close behind her and then saw, in the corner of her eyes, the large form of Sam Winchester moving next to her, his hands shoved into his pockets.

"Hey," he said. She nodded without looking at him. He took a seat next to her.

"You know Dean didn't mean it, don't you?"

"Yeah," she said, with the feel of an actor reciting a script. "Of course."

He looked at her for a minute and she kept staring out into the rain. He gave a small chuckle, a second later, and looked away.

"You know," he said, smirking slightly, something testing in his voice, "I never thought you were the kind of girl to get upset over something like that." He chuckled again. "Guess I was wrong."

He could feel hostility rolling off her.

"I'm not upset over _that_," she snapped, and Sam bit the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning.

_Score_, he thought.

"It's just- do you know how frustrating it is to be patronized by you guys when I've been dealing with this thing too?"

"Yeah, I know how frustrating it is to be patronized," he said honestly. "I was raised by John Winchester."

"At least he let you do stuff," she said, her voice earnest. "I'm just- policed by you guys."

"Cause we won't let you go into a haunted motel to face down a homicidal demon by yourself? You're right, that's completely unreasonable."

She shot him a withering look, her blue eyes burning. Sam was reminded that she was a teenager.

"I'm not exactly a kid, Sam."

"Katty, don't take this the wrong way, but you're really over-estimating yourself," he said, his voice blunt, and he saw her jaw clench. "You're gonna make a great hunter one day, but you've been doing this for about two and a half weeks, and truth is, you don't know enough to go charging in on your own."

She was shaking her head, her eyes stormy, clearly fighting back the urge to say something.

He rose to his feet and put a hand on her slumped-over shoulder. "We'll figure something out, Katty. It might take a few days, but we'll work this out."

His hand was on the doorknob when he heard her say, "And how many people'll die in those few days, Sam?"

000

It was only ten when the Winchesters, Sawyer and Katty collapsed into their beds and/or the couch.

Katty waited until it was midnight and then, overwhelmed by the feeling she was doing something incredibly stupid, she threw the covers off of herself and dressed silently in the dark.

Dean was sleeping on the couch, a blanket thrown over him. She cast a furtive glance at him, illuminated by the moonlight coming in through a high window, and then began looking in the pockets of his leather jacket for the keys to the Impala.

She paused at the door and looked back at him, her heart pounding.

"Bye, Dean," she whispered, and then she disappeared into the night.

The motel was deserted under the light of the full moon when Katty turned off the Impala and stepped out, staring up at it, one hand clenching her cross and the other, her gun, her jaw gritted and her eyes burning.

It's hard to describe just what evil feels like. Mostly because there aren't words for it, and also because, even if there were the words, there would be no way to string them together in a way that would make sense.

Katty felt evil now, felt it surrounding her like the densest of fog; her skin was crawling and her heart was pounding so hard she could barely hear.

She was more scared than she'd ever been in her life.

She closed her eyes and prayed, and then she opened them again, feeling just a little bit stronger, and strode into the motel.

She flicked lights on in the deserted lobby, and it didn't lessen the feel of evil, all around her, so thick she could almost taste it. She knew what she had to do, she was just scared to do it.

She summoned the nerve, standing there, her fists clenched tightly as dust swirled around her and as the lights on the stairway leading to the top floors flickered and shouted, forcing herself to, feeling as though she might cry because she was _so afraid_:

"Hey, you sulfur-scented Hell's Kitchen reject! I'm right here, baby! Come and get me, you sniveling, sneaking, pathetic, unredeemable waste of cosmic space-!"

"No need to be rude," came a man's voice from behind her, and, skin crawling, about to throw up, she turned around to see a man who would have been attractive under different circumstances grinning at her, his eyes glowing yellow.

"Hey, sweetheart," he said.

0

Dean's eyes opened. He blinked, staring up at the moon-light-bathed ceiling, and then a second wave of panic, strong and irrational, swept over him and he immediately rose to his feet, throwing the blanket off of him.

_Katty._

He ran to her room in the darkness; the door was open and her bed was empty. His heart missed a beat and he ran back the way he'd came, throwing open the front door. The empty street confirmed what he'd already feared; the Impala was gone.

"Oh, shit. Shit, shit-"

Sprinting now, he ran into Sam's room and began shaking his brother violently. Sam woke with a start, blinking up at him.

"Wha-"

"Katty's gone, Sammy."

0

He had his hands shoved in his pockets and made no move to approach her, just looking at her and grinning. She looked back at him warily, her eyes wide and her heart pounding, unnerved by how normal he looked even though he felt so unbelievably and indescribably wrong.

"I was wondering if you'd figure it out," he said, his voice rough but amiable.

"It wasn't hard," she replied, her own voice shaking slightly now that she was no longer screaming. "You're 'bout as subtle as a nuclear warhead."

"You've used that same phrase to describe yourself, more than once, I think," he said, pointing at her. She said nothing and it was then that he began moving closer. Her stomach flipped over and she felt cold originating somewhere in her stomach and spreading throughout the rest of her. Outside, the wind was howling and rushing by and making the old house-turned-motel creak.

"Little Kathryn Sherman," he said, the phrase rolling off the stolen tongue with an ease that suggested familiarity, as though he'd called her that many times without her knowledge or consent. "You've given me a bit of a chase, you know that?"

"Yeah, well, goes both ways, buddy."

She didn't feel nearly as brave as she made herself out to feel.

He laughed, a normal but chilling laugh, and the hairs on the back of her neck rose.

"What do you want with me?"

He looked at her and then cocked his head. "Gonna hafta be more specific, sweetheart."

"What," she sound, enunciating every word very clearly as though she was speaking to someone incredibly slow, "do you. Want. With me."

"That," he said, pointing at her again, "is a conversation for another time."

She didn't press the issue and instead said, "Then why are you here?"

"I think the question is- why are _you_ here?"

"I figured you wanted to have a chat, and one of us has to be polite-"

"I just wanted to let you know that you're not alone," he said, his grin widening. "I'm lookin' out for ya, kiddo."

"Yes, that's hugely comforting. Leave Sam alone."

The demon's eyes flashed, but just briefly, and then the smile was back. "Ah, Sammy-"

"-don't," she said warningly, her eyebrows shifting upwards, "call him that. You don't deserve to."

"And you do?"

She made no reply and he began circling her.

"I've got plans for Sam, kid. Big plans. And you- whatever else you might be- are not gonna get in the way of those coming to fruition, you understand me?"

"And if I do?"

In a heartbeat, he was in front of her, no longer smiling, yellow eyes burning. The feeling of pure evil washed over her, so strong she gagged.

"Then killing is one of the nicest things I'll do to you."

"You can't," she said softly, her voice slightly taunting, raising her eyebrows, "hurt me."

It was partly a guess, but the way the demon's jaw clenched proved her right.

"Well," he said seconds later, cocking his head, "maybe not. But that just means I'll have to get creative."

"What, they have arts and crafts class down under?"

He bent his head down to her and she knew what was coming before it did and jumped away, her heart hammering and stomach swimming. He looked after her, grinning.

"No," she said, pointing at him. "No. My first kiss is _not_ gonna be with- with a demon-"

"Ah, you'd get a good story out of it, though," he smirked, advancing, and now she pulled out the gun, unnerved and very disturbed by having been that close to him. There had been nothing pleasant or sexy about it, just darkness and coldness and evil.

"You," she said, trying to make the warning as forceful as possible but her voice was shaking and breaking, "stay away from me."

"C'mon, Kat," he said, drawing the word out. "Can't we talk about this?"

"You tried to _kiss_ me, you evil, reeking son of a bitch!"

He sighed and rolled his eyes with a shrug. "And now we're back to the name calling. Thought we'd moved past that."

"You killed my best friends' mother! You've stalked me my whole life, so-"

"Best friends?" said Azazel, his voice very quiet, the smile freezing on his face. "They mean that much to you already, do they?"

Katty said nothing but tightened her hold on the gun, her jaw clenching. Azazel threw his arms wide.

"Shoot me if you want, kiddo. _You_ might actually be able to do some damage, but you should know that- demons? We can't be killed." He began moving closer again, his arms falling to his sides. "Oh, we'll go back to hell, and some of the minor ones are back to square one- human souls again, being tortured for conceivable eternity." His voice was easy and light and he was still ginning. "But not me."

His smile widened. "No, I don't have to waste time as a ball of light, I just go see the big man and I'm right back up here. Trade secret. Might take some time, but I'm never gone."

Her back was against the wall and he was much too close. She turned her head as he leaned in, his breath cold on her neck. Her stomach flipped over.

"I'll be watching for you, kiddo. See ya in the next one."

Then he was gone and she dropped to her knees, retching violently, just as she heard the door swing open and Dean's voice cry, "Katty!"

"I'm okay," she gasped, and then threw up again. Someone's arm was around her shoulder.

"Sam, get some water-"

There was the sound of footsteps moving away and Katty squeezed her eyes shut. The demon was gone but the evil lingered; this place was tainted in a way it hadn't been before.

The florescent lights flickered.

"What happened?" asked Dean, his voice terse. She shook her head, her stomach in ropes, knowing she was going to be throwing up again soon.

"We just- talked," she said, her voice a rasp as Dean helped her lean against the wall, her head falling back limply. She looked up at him. "He didn't hurt me- it was just- being that close to him was overwhelming, and not in a good way."

Sam came back, clutching a glass of water, his face slightly worried. He knelt next t her.

"I can drink on my own, Sam," she said, and took the glass from him and took a few sips. She instantly made a face and handed him the water back.

"Ugh, no," she said. "It tastes tainted."

Dean's brow furrowed. "Tainted?"

"Yeah. Tastes evil, I'm not drinking it."

Sam dumped the water wordlessly on the floor before rising to his feet.

"Let's go," he said, and Dean slid and arm around Katty's waste to hoist her to her feet.

"I can walk, guys," she said as soon as she was upright, and Dean withdrew his arm. She took about two steps and then toppled onto Dean's chest. Dean caught her and put an arm around her, looking significantly at Sam. He tried to get her to move again, but she seemed glued to his chest, and he realized after a heartbeat that her face was buried there and her shoulders were shaking as she clutched at his leather jacket. He looked at Sam, now horrified.

_What do I do?_ He mouthed. Sam shrugged, looking equally perplexed. Dean, who was not used to comforting crying women in a way that didn't involve taking their pants off, gingerly slid his arms around her with a look to Sam that asked, _this good?_

Sam nodded, and, second later, Katty's arms slid around his waist, surprisingly tight. She was still shaking.

Dean's breath caught. She was warm, and there was something so solid about her. His eyes closed and he felt…_peaceful._ He didn't recognize the emotion for what it was at first, as it appeared so rarely in his life.

"It's okay," he told her. Sam, looking on with a glint in his eyes, suddenly moved to both of them and he wrapped his arms around Katty too, around her waist. She gave a sudden, watery chuckle.

"I feel like a Winchester sandwich," she said, her voice surprisingly steady. Dean and Sam looked at each other and then both of them, still holding her, shrugged in unison.

"Worse things could happen," they said together.

000

"Can you guys stay with me?" she asked once they got back to Sawyer's house. They looked at each other and then her. "Just- in the living room," she explained hurriedly, looking as though she wished she hadn't brought it up, her arms held awkwardly at her sides. "I just don't wanna be alone."

"Sure," they said. She lay down on the couch and then Dean and Sam sat at the table in front of Sam's laptop.

"The demon's name is Azazel, by the way," she said as she put her glasses on the cabinet next to the couch. "Thought that might help, if y'all are doing research."

As she drifted back into sleep, their quiet and comforting voices washed over her, making her feel like it was going to be okay.

And it was.

000

Yellow eyes watched from the back window, and this time, watching the way she interacted with the brothers and standing under a tree in a place where the moonlight seemed to falter and die before it reached him, Azazel did not smile.

000

The next day, while taking the inventory they always took before taking off again, the brothers realized they were short on coolant, rock-salt, red marker, underwear, and clean socks.

"Kat, I got an errand for ya," said Dean, looking up from cleaning his gun in Sawyer's living room. Sawyer was helping them and he looked up too, his good-humored face peaceful. Dean tossed her the keys to the Impala. "We need rock salt, coolant for the Impala, red marker- the thick, warehouse type ones- underwear- boxers- and socks. Get going."

He went back to his gun. Katty stared at the keys in her hand and then looked back up at him.

"You're letting me drive the Impala?"

"Yep," he said without looking at her.

"Do you have a brain tumor?"

"You're one of the team, aren't ya?"

Her stomach leapt and she grinned broadly before looking to Sawyer. "How do I get to Walmart?"

"It's really easy," he said, his blue eyes twinkling, amused at how excited she was. "Get off my street, take a left…"

A few minutes later she was sitting behind the wheel of the Impala and had her iPhone plugged into the jack that Dean was always grumbling about. The beautiful car roared to life and Katty cackled, somewhat maniacally as music burst out of the speakers.

"- MORE THAN A FEELAAAAN-"

She began singing along at the top of her lungs, rolling the windows down, an elbow hanging out as she put the car into 'drive' and then she was speeding off.

000

Inside Sawyer's living room, the three men looked up as they heard a burst of classic music, then a girl's gleeful voice over it, and then the familiar roar of the car as she sped away.

Dean looked as though he'd done something very stupid.

"Oh, god, she's gonna crash it," he said tersely.

000

There was something so freeing about driving down the Pennsylvania streets. The farther she got from Sawyer's home, the more the lingering vestiges of oppression and evil dropped away from her.

Once in Walmart, it only took a little while to find what she needed. She went to the men's underwear section and grabbed a variety of boxers for the brothers- Dean had a pair with Homer Simpson on them and another with horrible pick-up lines printed on them. Sam got a bright pink pair with white lettering reading 'I'm the man' and a pair with tiny superman symbols on them.

Now cackling, she made her way to the register and paid with a credit card that didn't belong to her.

The cheerful lightness that had filled her fell away, however, as she got closer to Sawyer's house, to be replaced by a feeling of deep unease. She pulled up in front of his house, turned off the Impala, and stepped out, eyeing the home with wariness.

She opened the door and called, "I'm back!"

The door shut behind her and she turned.

Sawyer was standing next to the now closed door. He smiled.

His eyes flashed yellow.

Katty gave a shout of alarm and scrambled backwards, tripping over herself in the effort to get away, her eyes widening. She heard muffled cries and looked into the living room- Dean and Sam were both tied to chair, looking worse for wear. She looked back to the demon inhabiting Sawyer's body.

"Get out of him," she said. "Now."

He cocked his head. "Sorry, sweetheart. Not gonna happen."

She dived behind her, rifling through the open duffel on the couch and pulled out a gun.

"You said last night I could do some damage," she said, pointing at him as he moved closer.

"Yeah," he said. "But you won't. Not while I'm wearing this boy."

Katty said nothing. Dean and Sam were still making noises behind her, but as they had ducktape over their mouths, she couldn't understand and ignored them.

"Where's the guy you were wearing last night?"

Azazel grinned. "He's propped up outside. I like him. He's feisty. I just figured I could get to you a little better in this-" he gestured at Sawyer's body, "- and I was right, wasn't I, princess?"

She said nothing but her jaw ground and she readjusted her grip on the gun. He sighed and stepped forward, extending a hand toward her.

"Take my hand, kid."

"I am NOT becoming you demon bride!" she screeched, moving backwards. "You can't make me!"

He stared at her, a clearly perplexed expression on his face. And then he burst into laughter, genuine laughter, clutching Sawyer's sides. A tear even rolled down his face.

"Katie, Katie, Katie. You got it all wrong kiddo, but, damn, I haven't laughed like that in centuries."

"I'm glad one of us is amused."

"C'mon, I don't bite."

She raised an eyebrow and he grinned.

"I mean that figuratively, of course. I do bite."

"Gross."

"I won't hurt you, Kat." His voice was softer, now. It wasn't really Sawyer's voice, though it was coming out of his mouth. It was rougher, harder, and ancient. "I just want to show you something."

She didn't move and he sighed, letting his hand fall to his side.

"Cross my heart," he said. She chewed on the inside of her cheek.

"Okay," she said, and Dean and am made noises of violent protest behind her. She ignored them and moved closer to Azazel; with every footstep, drums began beating in her mind, louder and louder.

She took his hand and sound burst in her mind- she screwed her eyes shut, her face contorting and this, as quickly as it stopped, it was gone. She released Azazel's hand and stumbled backwards, gasping.

"What was that-" she shouted, eyes opened, voice furious, and then she looked around.

Froze.

Stepped closer- actually _closer_- to the demon.

"This," he said, very quietly, "could be your future."

They were standing in a large, brightly colored kitchen, unnoticed by the family seated at the table, the father and mother of whom looked familiar to Katty, though she couldn't think why. This was obviously an affluent family- the kitchen was organized, the appliances stainless steel and impeccably clean, the cabinets a dark wood and the walls a light, unobtrusive but cheerful yellow.

It was an attractive family, too- the man looked to be in his early forties, with wavy and graying dark hair, a straight nose, full lips, and dusky, piercing blue eyes. His wife looked younger, with golden-blonde hair and bright blue eyes. There were three children and it looked as though the wife may be pregnant-

Something made Katty look closer, at the woman's straight and bulbed nose, at the way her lips curved down, and then her eyes fell on the silver cross at the base of the woman's neck.

Her heart may have stopped beating and she looked to Azazel, who didn't look like Sawyer anymore. He looked like a mix of people- the man he'd appeared as last night, Sawyer; there was even something of John Winchester about his burning eyes.

"That's me," she said, her voice slightly awed. "And the man- that's-"

"Sawyer, yes. And those," he gestured at the table, where the oldest child (a boy who looked to be about nine) was regaling his parents of an adventure on the school playground. "Are your children."

If her heart hadn't stopped before, it did then. She stepped closer, eyes wide, to the smiling boy who was talking. She could see it now- he had her eyes and Sawyer's nose and her mother's mouth.

"Gabriel," she said, quietly, and the boy hesitated for a moment before continuing.

She whirled around. Azazel was just looking at her, his yellow gaze unreadable.

"This could be your future," he said again. "This is what your future will be if you stop hunting."

Something in her stomach clenched as she looked back at the picture perfect family- and had the feeling that they weren't really hers.

"What about Sam and Dean?" she asked, turning to Azazel. He shrugged.

"Well, they weren't too happy when you told them you were ditching them for a med-school student, and so you guys haven't really talked since you were seventeen. But," he continued, now circling the family, "in time, you realized that it was for the best. You were safe, after all, and had a family."

He put his hands on the back of her daughter's chair- there was a look in the girl's eyes that Katty recognized. Azazel bent over the girl and sniffed her neck.

The girl paled, although the family could neither see nor hear the intruders.

Katty stepped forward, her face hardening and her hands clenching into fists at her sides. "Get away from her."

"Of course, there was no way you could know your abilities would be passed on to one of your children- it's always passed through the mother, you see, but sometimes it… _skips_. Your mother, for instance, couldn't do this."

Katty looked at herself.

"You're happy, kid."

"No," she said. "I'm not. I'm content, and that's a different story entirely, and I'll bet-"

She took off suddenly, running through the house, until she found the bedroom she and Sawyer must share. She went to the desk, opened the bottom left drawer, removed the false bottom, and pulled out a folder.

She opened it.

Inside, on the top, was an old and slightly faded picture of she and Sam and Dean, taken obviously years ago. There was information in that folder, too, newspaper clippings, mysterious deaths-

She turned around, holding up the folder. Azazel was right behind her.

"I'm not happy," she said. "I'm restless, and I love my family and I won't leave them, but I know, right under the surface, that I made a mistake and I wish, more than anything, I could go and take it back." She stepped forward. "Take me back."

"You sure, kiddo? Everything you ever wanted-"

"Everything I ever wanted and everything I ever needed are completely different, and everything I ever needed are Sam and Dean and they are waiting for me, so _take. Me. Back._"

He snapped his fingers and she was standing in Sawyer's foyer.

Sawyer was standing in front of her, blinking and shaking his head.

"Katty?" he said. "What happened-"

She threw her arms around his neck and held him tightly, her head resting on his chest. There was silence from behind them and she knew Sam and Dean were just as perplexed as the good, kind-hearted man she was now embracing.

She pulled away from Sawyer. There were tears in her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm so, so sorry, but it has to be this way, you know that, don't you?"

He gave a hesitant and confused smile. "I- what are you talking about?"

She blinked and the tears were gone. She clapped him on the shoulder, said "Don't you worry 'bout it," and then strode over to Sam and Dean. She bent over so that she was on eye level with the oldest and glaring Winchester, her hands on her thighs.

"Hey there," she said, and ripped the duck tape off his mouth.

000

It was late afternoon and they all stood by the Impala. Katty was holding Sawyer's hand, with the distinct feeling she'd reached a crossroads. They were loaded up and ready to go and now it was time to say goodbye.

She didn't tell him what she'd seen. She knew it would be in her mind for the rest of her life, and he didn't deserve the same torment.

She squeezed his hand.

Sam and Dean said goodbye to him and shook his hand, somewhat stiffly on Dean's part but sincerely all the same- he had, after all, harbored a fugitive for a girl he'd met three days ago.

Then the brothers waited by the car and Katty turned to him.

"I don't think I'll ever forget you," he said, and, although she was slightly flattered, it twisted her heart all the same.

"Try," she said as the eastern wind whipped her hair around her face. He grinned.

"Yeah, right."

They kissed, for the first and last time, and Katty had a sudden flash of a different kiss, one in front of a priest, she in white and he in a tuxedo- it was very real, she could feel the dress moving against her ribs, feel the stubble on his face-

Wait.

Sawyer didn't have stubble. She opened her eyes and saw a pair of golden green ones under dark, thick brows gazing back at her. With a jolt deep in her stomach, she realized what, exactly, was being shown to her.

_Nice try, Azazel._

She pulled back, blinked, and the man she refused to name even to herself was gone, and it was Sawyer again, gazing on her sadly and fondly.

"Bye," she said, and climbed into the backseat of the Impala, folding her legs up underneath her as the engine roared to life. Dean met her eyes in the rearview mirror.

"Time to go," he said.

And then they were on the road again, just the three of them, heading to somewhere only God knew.

000

Up high, very high, somewhere beyond the end of the universe, a large man with a beard and twinkling blue eyes looked down at southern Pennsylvania as the heart that held the whole of the universe plus some filled with joy and love as he smiled down at the three hunters in a car, heading somewhere only He knew.

* * *

"Dumming Song," by Florence and the Machine.

A/N: Hey guys! Thank you all so much for all the reviews they've been so awesome and inspiring and it really means a lot! Whoo. On a more personal note, I looove this chapter. Azazel is a lot of fun to write and the interactions just flowed. This chapter is really, really important. Lots of clues that are gonna come into play later! Sawyer, although I'm not planning on him showing up again (at least not for quite a while) is very important because of what he represents. He is the literal representation for a normal life, the life Kaatty could have, as Azazel said, if she chose to stop hunting. She said it herself, he's her 'dream man', even if he isn't her soulmate. The fact that she left him to be with the Winchesters is her forfeiting her right to a normal, safe life. She's giving it all up.

Who is her soulmate? Guess. :D

Also, as you can see, the relious aspect was upped a little in this chapter. I'm not gonna shove christianity down any throats, don't worry, but there are going to be strong Christian elements from here on out and religion in general is going to be portrayed respectfully and in a positive light. I'm not trying to make anyone mad, it's something I feel this particular rendition of SPN needs.

Please review!

K.


	8. A Prologue To Something More

**_Backseat Driver _****by Katty Noir

* * *

**

_I just died in your arms tonight_  
_It must have been something you said_  
_I just died in your arms tonight_

_I keep looking for something I can't get_  
_Broken hearts lie all around me_  
_And I don't see an easy way to get out of this_  
_Her diary it sits on the bedside table_  
_The curtains are closed, the cats in the cradle_  
_Who would've thought that a boy like me could come to this_

**Chapter Seven: A Prologue To Something More**

Katty hadn't been to Chicago in over two years, and the reasons that brought her back now were very grim. There was a woman, a dead woman, who had been found- quite literally in pieces- in her apartment, and, obviously, she, Sam and Dean were now 'on the case'.

It was a weird thing to be excited about, but she couldn't help it. She knew already how this was going to go, this 'episode' and it was exciting. This was where things picked up- this, in her mind, had always been the real beginning of the end. She had a ramshackle plan forming in the back of her mind, half-acknowledged, only thought about when she was half-asleep next to the youngest Winchester. But, half-acknowledged, half-cooked, or no, the fact remained the same:

No Winchesters were going to die on her watch.

The three hunters parked on a busy street and climbed out of the Impala, all dressed in slightly hilarious uniforms. Dean, thoroughly disgruntled, went around and got a toolbox from the back as Sam and Katty waited by the front, Katty trying to adjust her uniform to make it more flattering and Sam just staring off into the distance. Dean joined them, clanking toolbox in hand, and they started walking along the crowded street.

"All right, guys. This is the place."

"You know," said Dean, speaking over his brother, "I've gotta say Dad and me did just fine without these _stupid_ costumes. I feel like a… high school drama dork." He smiled, somewhat patronizingly. Katty, who was a 'drama dork' herself, shot him a look that would have boiled water. He either didn't noticed or ignored her. "What was that play that you did? What was it – Our Town. Yeah, you were good, it was cute."

Sam was unaffected by his brother's ribbing. "Look, you wanna pull this off or not?"

"I'm just sayin', these outfits cost hard-earned money, okay?"

Sam scoffed. "Whose?"

"Ours," said Dean, as though it was obvious. Katty laughed and Sam looked annoyed but amused all the same. "You think credit card fraud is easy?"

"Thanks for lettin' us look around," said Sam as the small black woman opened the door to the apartment. Katty's nose wrinkled as they walked in; the smell of death was still lingering, and there was a metallic taste in the air that she associated with periods and beets.

"Well, the police said they were done with the place, so…." He and Sam moved into the apartment, past geometrical hanging curtains and Dean shut the door as Katty stared at all the blood on the otherwise clean carpet. "You guys said you were with the alarm company?"

"That's right."

The landlady's eyebrows rose and she pursed her lips in a way that wasn't condemning; it had the feeling more of a teacher chastising a well-loved student. "Well, no offense, but your alarm's about as useful as boobs on a man."

Sam and Dean looked at each other and Katty hastily turned her laugh into a cough.

"Well, that's why we're here," said Dean, his voice business-like but also grim. "To see what went wrong and stop it from happening again."

"Now, ma'am, you found the body?"

"Yeah."

"Right after it happened?"

The landlady shook her head, exhaling as she looked around the apartment. She looked distinctly uncomfortable. "No. Few days later. Meredith's work called—she hadn't shown up. I knocked on the door." She hesitated, eyes darting around the room. "That's when I noticed… the smell."

None of the hunters responded to the last bit and Dean said, his tone brisk and business-like, "Any windows open? Any sign of break-in?"

"No, windows were locked, front door was bolted. Chain was on the door- we had to cut it just to get in."

"And the alarm was still on?" clarified Dean.

"Like I said, bang-up job your company's doin'."

"Mmhmm," said Dean, exchanging a significant look with Sam. "You see any overturned furniture, broken glass, signs of struggle?"

The landlady shook her head. "Everything was in perfect condition- except Meredith."

Katty wondered, gazing at the woman, if she and Meredith had been close.

"And what condition was Meredith in?" asked Sam.

"Meredith was… all _over_," the landlady gestured broadly around the room, with a look on her face that indicated she was still surprised at the scope of the mutilation. "In pieces. The guy who killed her must have been some kind of… a whackjob. But I tell you," she said, raising her eyebrows significantly, "if I didn't know any better, I'd have said a wild animal did it."

She gave a single nod as though her opinion settled it. Dean and Sam looked to each other again.

"Ma'am," said Sam seconds later, "do you mind if we take some time? Give this place a once-over?"

"Oh, well, go right ahead. Knock yourself out."

000

Dean was already in the bar and Katty and Sam parked the Impala, later that night in a crowded Chicago parking lot. A woman with a bored look on her face was leaning against a lamppost, smoking a cigarette with the air of someone who'd done something so many times it had become routine. A few yards away, a group of younger looking boys were jostling each other and looking at her.

Katty was being quiet- unusually so- and as they climbed out of the car and slammed the doors before making their way through cars to the bar door, Sam mentioned it.

"You've been quiet," he said, and she looked up at him as though startled.

"I have?"

"Yeah. Since we left Pennsylvania."

"Oh." She looked to the door; light, music and chatter were pouring out of it. Sam looked down at her, thinking how stunningly beautiful she was at times. "I haven't meant to be. Just had a lot on my mind, I guess."

The conversation was then cut short by their entrance into the bar. The smell of smoke, alcohol and leather hit their noses like a wave. Sam looked around, nodded at Dean, and saw an empty table.

"Here," he said, leaning down to say the word in Katty's ear, and he put his hand on her back for just a moment to guide her in the right direction through the crowd.

Dean, after catching Sam's eye, left the bartender and moments later joined the other two hunters at the high, round table.

"Did you get anything?" Sam asked, his voice slightly patronizing. "Besides her number?"

Katty was staring off in the distance. She was, it seemed to Dean, in one of the moods that characterized female and especially teenage existence.

"Dude, I'm a professional," said Dean, his tone highly offended, as though Sam had insinuated something unreasonable and disgusting. "I'm offended that you would think that."

Sam just looked at him.

"…All right, yeah." He gave a laugh and grinned, holding up a napkin with a series of digits scribbled across it. Katty glanced at it, and then went back to staring at something, her brow now furrowed. She looked as though she was thinking very hard about something.

Sam gave a very tight and annoyed smile. "You mind doin' a little bit of thinking with your upstairs brain, Dean?"

Dean, who had been checking out yet another girl through the haze of smoke, started and looked back at his brother. "Huh? Look, there's nothing to find out. I mean, Meredith worked here, she waited tables, everyone here was her friend. Everybody said she was normal. She didn't do or say anything weird before she died, so…" he shrugged. "What about that symbol, you find anything?"

"Nope, nothing," said Sam, flipping open his father's journal. "It wasn't in Dad's journal or in any of the usual books. I just have to dig a little deeper, I guess."

"That's what she said," interjected Katty. Dean looked at her and then grinned.

"She speaks!" He looked back at Sam. "Well, there was a first victim, right? Before Meredith?"

"Right. Yeah," said Sam, distracted from his womanizing brother. Katty was now not staring, but glaring, and Sam followed her gaze for a second to see a woman with short blonde hair before returning to the newspaper clipping. "His name was, uh-" he tuned the paper around hastily, craning his neck as the picture came into focus, "-his name was Ben Swardstrom." He passed the clipping to Dean, who studied it seriously. Sam glanced at Katty; she was acting weird, even for her. "Last month he was found mutilated in his town house. Same deal-" he gave a shrug. "The door was locked, the alarm was on."

"Is there any connection between the two of them?" asked Dean, his eyes flicking up from the paper. Katty was now eyeing a man with a scruffy beard and a loud laugh.

"Not that I can tell- I mean, not yet, at least," said Sam with a shrug, glancing over all the different data spread over the round, beer-stained table as though it held mystical answers. "Ben was a banker, Meredith was a waitress. They never met, never knew anyone in common- they were practically from different _worlds_."

"Two worlds-" sang Katty absentmindedly. "One faaamily-"

The brothers stared at her for a second, and then Dean shook his head as though clearing it as he turned back to Sam.

"So, to recap, the only successful intel we've scored so far is the bartender's phone number."

He gave a cocky grin. Sam's gaze was drawn to the woman Katty had been glaring at earlier and his eyes narrowed- there was something familiar about those shoulders. He leaned around Dean, trying to see more clearly.

"What?" asked Dean, craning his neck to see what Sam was staring at. Katty was glowering again, a fierce, icy look in her eyes; neither Dean nor Sam paused to ponder this.

Sam, without answering Dean, rose to his feet and made his way over to the blonde woman, narrowly avoiding a man who was shorter than he but about five times as wide in the process. It looked like all he could see was the woman in the red jacket.

"Sam?"

He kept walking. Dean turned to stare at Katty, his gaze incredulous.

"What just happened?"

"True love," said Katty with a shift of her eyebrows, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Dean's brows tightened, he looked after Sam again, and then turned back to Katty.

"No, seriously, kid. What the hell's going on? Does Sam know that chick?"

"Sure looks like it."

Meg had now turned around and was talking to Sam with a smile. She didn't look nearly as surprised as Sam had.

Dean turned, yet again, back to Katty. She was gazing at the woman with a very ugly look on her face, her body tense and pulled back, as though she wanted to keep as much distance between she and the blonde woman as possible. Dean eyed her for a minute, taking all this in, and then rose to his feet.

"Alright, enough twenty-questions."

"Dean!"

But he was already weaving his way through the crowd. Katty, with the air of someone doing something they really didn't want to do, followed.

They came to a stop just behind Sam in time to hear Meg say:

"Oh, I did. I came, I saw, I conquered. Oh, and I met what's-his-name, something- Michael Murray at a bar."

Dean looked to Katty and mouthed _Who?_ She shrugged. Meg glanced at both of them before returning her gaze to Sam with the air of someone who wanted another person to know they were being ignored.

"Who?" asked Sam.

"Oh, it doesn't matter. Anyway, the whole scene got old, so I'm living here for a while."

Dean cleared his throat loudly and Katty gave an obnoxious cough. They were both ignored.

"You're from Chicago?"

"No, Massachusetts- Andover." A grin spread over her face. "Gosh, Sam, what are the odds we'd run into each other?"

"Yeah, I know, I thought I'd never see you again."

"Well, I'm glad you were wrong," said Meg, her tone more than a little flirtatious. Sam nodded; Meg didn't know him well enough to know that it was forced, but Dean and even Katty did.

Dean cleared his throat again and Meg's eyes flashed to him.

"Dude," she said, her tone condescending and annoyed, "cover your _mouth_."

Katty raised her eyebrows and stared determinately at the floor as Dean looked taken aback for just a second before his mouth snapped shut and his gaze flashed to Sam with 'what the hell just happened?' scrawled across his features.

"Yeah, um, I'm sorry, Meg," said Sam quickly. "This is, uh- this is my brother, Dean. And this is-"

"This is Dean?" interrupted Meg with a hard smile. Katty gave her a 'what the hell is your problem?' look, knowing full well what her problem was.

"Yeah."

Dean gave a trademark cocky grin, clearly feeling like they were back in familiar territory. "So, you've heard of me?"

"Oh, yeah. I've heard of you," said Meg, her tone hard and her eyes flashing. "Nice-the way you treat your brother like _luggage_."

Dean looked confused and Katty looked like she was about to smack the other, taller girl's face.

"Sorry?" asked Dean.

"Why don't you let him do what he wants to do? Stop dragging him over God's green earth-"

"-why don't you get off his case and keep your mouth shut about things you don't understand?" snapped Katty suddenly, her eyes flashing. Both Winchesters stared at her as though she'd grown a second head; Meg, however, turned slowly to gaze in a condescending manner at the other girl.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice full of cloyed honey. "Sam never mentioned you."

"We, uh, hadn't met her when I met you," said Sam hurriedly, clearly anxious to avoid a fight. Meg gave a tight smile; Dean was still staring at the fuming Katty.

"Funny," said Meg, still looking at Katty. "How some people just… turn up. You might think it's… _fate_."

"Or divine intervention," half-snarled Katty. "Personally, I'll stick with the second."

"You do that, sweetie, I'll stand by something that makes sense-"

"Meg, it's all right," interrupted Sam hastily. The two Winchesters looked around awkwardly while Meg and Katty maintained their steady glare. Dean gave a low whistle.

"Okay, awkward," he said. "I'm gonna get a drink now. C'mon, Kat." He gave Sam a look and then he and Katty shuffled through the crowd to the bar.

"Two jack and cokes," he said to a bartender who'd been staring oddly at Katty all night. His eyes narrowed when Dean turned to Katty and asked, "What's the deal with that chick?"

Katty, just because she was Katty, took the glass the bartender slid Dean instead of her own, winked at the older man, and knocked the shot back. The bartender looked slightly pale. Dean took Katty's glass with a roll of his eyes and mimicked her.

"Don't know," she said, licking her lips as she set the glass back down with a loud 'clink'. "Just don't like her, I guess."

Dean didn't know if he entirely believed this, but let it pass.

"You know," he said, taking another drink, "I don't know if I've ever had a girl stick up for me like that before."

"Don't get used to it. You only got one free pass." She wasn't smiling, but he knew she was joking. He nudged her with his shoulder.

"Thanks, Kat. I 'preciate it."

She looked up at him for a second.

"Dean," she said, speaking over the crowd. "There's something I need to tell-"

But at that moment, just as she was going to tell him about the demon, about everything, Sam came to them and grabbed Dean's shoulder.

"Hey," he said into his brother's ear. "Let's go."

Dean slapped down a few more bills, he and Katty drained their glasses in a final gulp, and then they turned and began weaving their ways through the increasingly intoxicated crowd.

Then they were out into the cooler, slightly cleaner Chicago air and Dean, for half a second, forgot about Katty. There was family business to be taken care of.

"Who the hell was she?" Dean asked as they walked to the car, his voice gruff. Katty was trailing a few steps behind, but neither of the brothers were really thinking about her.

"I don't really know," said Sam, his tone slightly confused as he looked back at Dean. "I only met her once. Meeting up with her again?" he shook his head, facing forward again. "I don't know, man, it's weird."

"And what was she saying?" continued Dean, ignoring what Sam had said, clearly feeling insulted. "I treat you like luggage? What, were you _bitchin'_ about me to some chick?"

It was obvious from the tone of his voice that this was the greatest of transgressions.

"Look, I'm sorry, Dean. It was when we had that huge fight when I was in that bus stop in Indiana. But that's not important, just listen-"

"Well, is there any truth to what she's saying? I mean, am I keeping you against your _will_, Sam?" Dean was gearing up for a fight. Katty began to feel that she shouldn't be intruding on this and just watched the brothers' backs in the lamplight.

"No, of course not," said Sam, exasperated. "Now, would you _listen_?"

"_What_?"

"I think there's somethin' strange going on here, Dean."

They had stopped walking; Katty did, too.

"Yeah, tell me about it. She wasn't even that into me."

Katty raised her eyebrows but Sam, much more used to this kind of pig-headedness, just took it in stride.

"No, man, I mean like _our_ kind of strange. Like, maybe even a lead."

"Why do you say that?"

"Why not?" interjected Katty. She was ignored.

"I met Meg weeks ago, _literally_ on the side of the road. And now, I run into her in some random Chicago bar? I mean, the same bar where a waitress was slaughtered by something supernatural? You don't think that's a little weird?"

Dean gave a shrug. "I don't know, random coincidence. It happens."

"Yeah, it happens," said Sam, raising his eyebrows, "but not to us. Look, I could be wrong, I'm just sayin' that there's something about this girl that I can't quite put my finger on."

Dean smirked and Katty muttered something under her breath that neither boy could really understand, but Sam thought he heard 'black-hearted floozy'.

"Well, I bet you'd like to. I mean, maybe she's not a suspect, maybe you've got a thing for her, huh?"

Sam rolled his eyes and gave a skeptical laugh. Dean was still going, full steam. "Maybe you're thinkin' a little too much with your upstairs brain, huh?" He pointed to his own head and flashed an encouraging grin at Sam, who returned the smile but then became serious again.

"Do me a favor. Check and see if there's really a Meg Masters from Andover, Massachusetts, and see if you can't dig anything up on that symbol on Meredith's floor."

"What are you gonna do?" asked Dean as Sam moved to the Impala.

Sam grinned. "I'm gonna watch Meg."

Dean cackled. "Yeah, you are."

"Don't do anything I wouldn't do," advised Katty.

"I just wanna see what's what," Sam reassured them. "Better safe than sorry."

Dean was still grinning. "All right, you little pervert," he said, his tone good-natured. Katty snorted and grinned.

Sam gave him a stony look that was chock full of disapproval. "Dude."

"I'm goin', I'm goin'," he said, flapping a hand in his brother's direction as he and Katty crossed the busy, nighttime street.

"Guess it's just you and me, kid."

"Oh, goodie."

000

"Kay, Dean, I called that Caleb guy and he said that the symbol is Zoarastrian, and it's about Devas, some kinda demon, but he didn't elaborate any, so- what in the world are you doing?"

Dean was lying, flat on his back, arms spread across the bed, just staring at the ceiling, which, although cracked and watermarked, was not so interesting as to deserve Dean's undivided attention. Katty, who was holding her computer and several sheets of paper, froze and blinked- even for a Winchester, this behavior was off.

"Nothing," said Dean, his voice gruff and oddly slack, his eyes still glued to the ceiling. Katty cocked her head, watching his chest rise and fall with even breathes. His shirt was riding up and she could see maybe two inches of smooth skin.

"Dude, are you high?"

He snorted, rolling his eyes back to look at her. "I wish."

"Well," she said as she moved over and then sat next to him on the bed, her computer running hot and resting on her thighs, "whatever you're doing, knock it off. We need t' find some things out-"

Dean sat up with a groan and looked at her, leaning back on his elbows. Not for the first time, she was struck by how intensely _beautiful_ he was, with his full lips and long lashes, and yet still virility and charisma oozed out of him. "You're as bad as Sam, you know that? Always- _research_. I was hoping you'd get him to calm down about that, but now you're his- ally, or something."

"Sorry to disappoint," she said without making eye contact as she opened the computer, her face suddenly illuminated by bluish light. The soft clicking of keys was immediate.

"Alright," she muttered, folding her legs up under herself, "_devas…_" She glanced at the again-horizontal Dean.

"Shouldn't you be looking up Meg? Since you can't seem to do anything else useful?"

"Maybe I should call Amy," he said distantly, his eyes slowly becoming more unfocused. "Yeah…"

"Seriously, Dean, I think someone slipped you a roofie or something cause you are acting extremely weird, and I mean even for you."

Dean began giggling, still lying spread eagled on the bed and staring at the ceiling. Katty put the computer on the bed spread, turned and knelt next to him, peering down at him. His eyes were glazed and unfocused and his pupils were dilated so much she could barely see any green.

She began to feel very concerned- she'd been joking when she'd said he'd been roofied, and she wasn't exactly an expert on the area of date-rape, but now she was starting to wonder.

"Dean," she said, grabbing his face and making him look at her. "Focus. When we had our drinks, did yours taste funny?"

He stared at her for a moment longer, his lips puckered up as she squished his prickly face and then began giggling again. She let go of him and sighed, and then something very unexpected happened. Dean reached up, grabbed her by her collar, pulled her down to him, and kissed her full on the lips.

Her first thought (well, second, first being '_holy what the oh my dean freaking Winchester __**what**_) was _'wow, his lips are really soft_'.

Her third thought was, _' talk about gender role reversal- the guy's been roofied and he's still making out with me.'_

Dean was still attached to her by the lips. She wormed her hands up and pushed, more forceful than she meant to, against his chest. He fell back onto the bed, his head tilted back and his eyes closed- he was sound asleep.

Katty sat in stunned silence, her lips feeling very tender and the rest of her feeling a mixture of elation, confusion, and the urge to laugh until she cried.

"Well," she said, stunned.

000

An hour passed and Katty had dug up a little more, as well as figuring out the most likely scenario explaining the would-be-date-raped Winchester lying on the cheap hotel bed.

The bartender that had served them had been female, but the person who had actually poured her and Dean's drinks had been male- and he'd been staring at her all night.

She remembered switching she and Dean's drinks as a joke, just right in front of him- he'd glowered but hadn't really cared.

She raised her eyebrows. Turned out the playful moment had ended up being very good for her and very bad for Dean.

A groan came from the bed and Katty turned around quickly. Dean's eyes were open but unfocused.

"My… head…" he said, his voice lower and rougher than normal. Katty couldn't help laughing. Dean sat up, looking a little pale and very out of it.

"What happened?" he asked, putting a hand to his head. "I feel like I've been out for hours-"

"One hour, actually," she said, her tone very amused considering the circumstances. "I think- um," she coughed to cover up a laugh, "I think you were roofied."

He stared at her and she cackled. "Yeah. I kind of- figured it out. I think that I was supposed to be the one- but I switched our drinks." She laughed. "This is just too funny! Not that- date rapes are funny, obviously. I have a cousin who was date raped."

She nodded. Dean was still staring at her as though she'd grown a second head.

"Yeah."

He shook his head after a second and then reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out his phone.

"I'm gonna call Sam," he said, his voice a little slurred. "You do… research."

"Research? I've been doing research! Dude, being drugged is no excuse for not helping out the team-"

"Katty?" His voice was strained and he looked like he had a bad headache.

"Yeah?"

"Can it."

"Holy-" said Dean, snapping his phone closed and staring blankly into space. Katty, who had a pen in her mouth and ink splatters on her hands, looked up.

"Holy- what?"

"C'mon," he said, rising to his feet. "My friend at the police department- Amy- pulled Meredith and the banker's birth certificates." He yanked the door open and Katty strode out of it. "Both of them are from Lawrence. We gotta go get copies now."

"This is getting weird."

And by weird, of course, she meant _awesome._

0

They returned 'home' an hour later- it was close to five o'clock in the morning, and Dean and Katty were running on coffee, adrenaline, and each other. Dean had birth certificates of the two victims in his pockets and a stony look on his face as they walked down the deserted pre-dawn streets of the Windy City. Katty glanced at him from time to time, partly to check on him and partly to assure herself, again and again, that he was really there, but she knew Dean, better than he understood, and she knew that now was one of those times to keep her mouth shut and let him think.

He hadn't mentioned anything of the kiss (she doubted he remembered it) and if he wasn't going to, then she sure as Christmas wouldn't either.

They were halfway back to the motel when Dean said, suddenly, his brow furrowed, his voice tight and tired, "I don't get it. Why is it that- lately- everything's been tying back to Lawrence, and us? And you?" he added, a little forcefully, looking down at her as she stared back at him, a little startled, and kept silent.

"It feels like there's a connection between everything that's happened in the past two months but I can't figure it out." He was staring forward again, his expression very hard. Katty still said nothing.

Two more blocks, fifteen more minutes of silence, both of them thinking.

"I mean, Christ, does it always have to be us? Do we always have to be- superman, or something? I tell you what, kid, me and Sammy and dad, we've been doing this for a long time, and it- it _eats_ at you. I've never told Sam any of this, I don't want him to know, but it kills you, after a while."

They'd reached the hotel, and Katty remained silent.

Dean slid the key in the door.

"I don't wanna do this my whole life," he said quietly, his hands hanging loosely at his sides, something defeated in his voice as he stared out the black window as Katty shut the door behind them. There was a moment when neither of them said anything and then Dean's face contorted without warning and he threw over the desk with a series of loud clatters and thuds.

"I don't wanna do this my _whole life!" _he shouted, a kind of pain and helpless anger in his voice that Katty couldn't understand but it broke her heart all the same. "God dammit- always running and shooting and living in-" he gestured wildly around them before his eyes snapped back onto hers, "-motel room! I can't _do_ this forever!"

There are times in even the most eloquent of people's lives when words simply are not enough. And as Dean Winchester, leather clad, demon-hunting Dean Winchester stood facing her with a hopeless look in his beautiful eyes, Katty understood that now was one of those times.

She took two steps forward with her mind spinning and wrapped her arms tightly around him, his leather jacket crumpling up under her arms, her face buried in his chest. For a moment he didn't respond and then his hands touched her back. It was not the first time they had hugged, or been close, but it _was_ different. Dean was not used to being comforted.

He grasped her gingerly at first and then tighter, crushing her to him, closing his eyes as his head rested on top of hers.

"You won't," she said quietly. "I promise, Dean, you won't."

They held each other a few minutes longer before Dean pulled away slowly, his arms still around her. Katty tilted her head back to look at him- he was staring down at her, his jaw clenched and his eyes in shadow. Her stomach clenched in a way that wasn't exactly unpleasant. She may not have been an expert in situations like this, but she knew that those burning eyes could only mean a few things.

He was so much taller than she was and he had to lean down even as she stood on her toes, pressed up against him to support herself, and then his hand was behind her head and his face was angling down, his full lips slightly parted and she caught a glimpse of his long lashes fluttering against his cheek against the green of his eyes and she felt like she was on fire and then he kissed her, for real this time.

Her heart and her brain exploded.

0

There are several things that must be understood about the woman called Katty Sherman for the remainder of the incredible story of her life to make sense.

She was not shy, or lonely, or self-conscious, or many of the things people associated with teenage females. Some would say she _should_ be somewhat self-conscious, as she was slightly curvier than the average girl her height, but she never quite managed to fit that particular personality trait into all the other things she was. She was loud, the kind of loud that could cover a crowded room or fill a theatre, and she was charismatic, and she was charming.

All this aside, the demons in her past- and that is meant in the most literal sense- prevented her from having a normal high-school career, most of all when it came to boys and dating them. She was seventeen years old, and before meeting the Winchesters and Sawyer, the closest she'd come to a romantic relationship was her best friend Jason, a football player with kind, doe-like brown eyes, cheekbones that could cut glass, a 4.0 GPA, and a wicked sense of humor. Her friends dated, and whenever the group of friends got together and began swapping kissing stories, Katty would always stay silent, a little bit curious about this staple of teenage life that she'd never experienced.

But, she told herself, it wasn't really important. She had great friends, a great life (generally) and she could hang out with guys without dragging romance into it.

Silver lining.

The conviction, however, only went so far.

So the fact that Dean Winchester was now kissing her fiercely, like he couldn't get enough of her, was more than a little exciting.

0

His hand was on her jaw, his lips working against hers, and she just went with it. She couldn't get close enough to him- her hands were under his jacket and in his short hair, one of his legs wedged between hers-

Then they were moving, and her back was pressed against the wall. It was convenient, actually, because he was very tall and it gave her a little more leverage. He was intent and intense, so intense, and her skin was on fire, everything was burning and heat and Dean, Dean's lips on her mouth, and she wasn't really sure what to do with her lips so she really just followed his lead-

He moved, kissing her down to her jaw line and then along it, and then he kissed her neck, a little harder, and she gasped, hands sliding underneath his shirt and along smooth, muscled back.

He raised his head and looked at her, his full lips parted, his eyes dark and a little bit shocked. She just looked back at him, no clue as to what expression she had on her face.

Sam was forgotten. Demons were forgotten. There was a boundary, a line Dean wanted to cross but that Katty couldn't, and it was screaming between them.

Katty took her turn kissing Dean's jaw, making him groan and tilt his head back, and that turned her on more than anything else, that one moment of vulnerability, and his hands slipped from her back to her sides, making her stomach flip and her skin burn-

Then the door opened and there was a very loud silence. Katty and Dean froze.

"Hey, Sammy," said Dean, his head still tilted back, Katty's lips on his neck so that she felt his throat vibrate. "Any luck?"

The silence stretched on as Sam stared at them, eyes wide and mouth open. Katty was flushed, her hair messy, and one of her hands was still resting under Dean's shirt. Sam took all this in, then closed his mouth and shrugged, clearly trying to hold back a wide grin.

"It looks like I didn't get as lucky as you."

Katty, her face burning but also split into a grin, took a step away from Dean and shoved her hands awkwardly into her pants.

"He didn't get that lucky," she said, not quite able to meet Sam's eyes. She knew he would be raising his eyebrows and smirking.

Dean chuckled and elbowed her. "I don't know, kid. That was pretty lucky."

Sam was shaking his head as though trying to clear images from it. Katty bit back a grin and elbowed Dean in the side, her eyes glinting. Dean glanced down at her with a smirk and wrapped his arm around her head before ruffling her hair. She grabbed his arm and made a muffled noise of protest.

The brothers made eye contact, and something triggered the memory that they were, in fact, on an important mission.

Their eyes widened in tandem.

"Dude," they exclaimed together. "I gotta talk to you."

Katty, still struggling against Dean's armpit, froze and then bit Dean's arm through his leather jacket.

**TBC...**

**

* * *

"**I just Died in your arms tonight," by Whitesnake

A/N:

Howdy, guys. It's been FOREVER. My life has been... utterly insane. Just. Freaking crazy. It has seriously turned into some sick mix of a lifetime movie, LOST, every Taylor Swift song ever, and the leading soap opera of the day. I don't know how it happened, I really dont. But, silver lining- I'm on my last semester of high school.

Love you guys!

Katty NOir

(by the way, i don't know if you caught it, but dean and katty made out :) )


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